Breaking Free

Verse 1 I can’t breathe when I say your name It catches somewhere in my throat Like my body remembers something My mind still tries to soften Mother… Do you feel it too? This tearing, this distance This silence I created ⸻ Verse 2 I didn’t leave all at once It happened slowly In the way I stopped telling you things In the way I started holding my own hand In the way your voice Started hurting more than helping In the way I felt smaller Every time you said my name ⸻ Pre-Chorus (broken, quiet) I didn’t mean to hurt you I didn’t mean to break anything I didn’t mean to become Someone you don’t recognize ⸻ Chorus But I couldn’t stay I couldn’t stay I couldn’t stay and still be alive I love you God, I love you But it was killing me to be yours So I left With shaking hands With a heart that still calls for you ⸻ Verse 3 Do you hate me now? Do you sit somewhere and replay it all? Do you tell the story Like I’m the one who walked away too easily? Because I didn’t It felt like tearing my own skin open Like choosing pain on purpose Because the other pain never stopped ⸻ Verse 4 I still reach for you in my worst moments Still want to hear you say it’s okay Still forget, for just a second Why I had to go away And then it hits me again In my chest, in my stomach, in my lungs That love shouldn’t feel like drowning That safety shouldn’t come undone ⸻ Bridge (intimate, direct) You taught me love But you also taught me fear And I don’t know how to hold both Without disappearing I wanted you to see me Not shape me Not need me Just… see me ⸻ Chorus (variation, more desperate) I couldn’t stay I couldn’t breathe I couldn’t be the girl you needed I love you I miss you And that’s what makes this unbearable Because leaving you Didn’t mean I stopped loving you It just meant I started choosing me ⸻ Break (almost spoken) And I’m so scared… That I broke something I can’t fix That I hurt you The way I was hurting That the family looks at me And sees distance instead of survival ⸻ Verse 5 I carry you in everything In the way I doubt myself In the way I apologize too quickly In the way I still feel like a child I didn’t leave you behind I brought you with me In pieces In echoes In everything I’m trying to unlearn ⸻ Final Chorus (soft, crying, repeating) I couldn’t stay I couldn’t stay I couldn’t stay I love you I love you I love you But I am learning Slowly, painfully To love myself too ⸻ Outro (very quiet, almost whispering) Mother… I hope one day This doesn’t feel like loss I hope one day I can say your name Without my chest collapsing I hope one day I won’t feel like Choosing me Was the same as losing you But right now… It feels like both