Time Stand Still

[Verse 1] Why is it like this? On a station bench, knotting my laces slow, why do they grin like that? I tug the frayed cuff of this old uniform. Say I’m here— they stare through me like I’m a rumor the doors already swallowed. The ticket gates ping. Everybody drifts ahead. My feet stay taped to the floor. Am I meant to begin again with the whole sky blinking? [Hooks] Why is it like this? Why is it like this? Why’s the whole world so hard to carry? [Chorus] Why is it like this? Why is it like this? Why’s the whole world so hard to carry? What am I supposed to hold with hands nobody reached for? They say, “Move on, don’t lock up,” but nobody taught my fingers that spell. Still I’m here, still I’m here, glitching through the glare. If there are no rules, then keep moving, cracked and glowing. No need to step into their polished cage of “right.” Hold your breath too long and you disappear. Step over the dead line, say your own name out loud. [Verse 2] Under the convenience store buzz, the hiss of a coffee can opening split the night and my chest loosened. A small ache folded in my pocket, still, on the last train platform, I was standing there in full color. A station poster peeling, its corners twitching in the wind. I held up that strange black hour no one had asked for, like it was mine to keep. [Chorus] Why is it like this? Why is it like this? Why’s the whole world so hard to carry? What am I supposed to hold with hands nobody reached for? They say, “Move on, don’t lock up,” but nobody taught my fingers that spell. Still I’m here, still I’m here, glitching through the glare. If there are no rules, then keep moving, cracked and glowing. No need to step into their polished cage of “right.” Hold your breath too long and you disappear. Step over the dead line, say your own name out loud. [Bridge] No need to rebuild yourself from their measurement. Not from the marks alone, but from every mile that dragged you here. And on the days words skid away, and on the days you went mute, take all of it— you are not too strange to stay. [Final Chorus] Why is it like this? Why is it like this? Still, the morning rolls back in. For the ones nobody kept, it keeps arriving anyway. No need to end the whole thing over another sleepless hour. With worn soles and a wired-up pulse, still I made it this far. [Outro] If there are no rules, draw your own line with shaking hands. Don’t let anyone edit the fact that you’re here. Go slow if you need to, toward the place where your name feels real. [Musical Band Slow Roll Fade out] Ask it again, and again, and stay standing in the staticnotic rhyme scheme