My old friend, you wear your finest face For every stranger gathered in this place You learned to turn your wounds into a story And somehow call the bleeding glory I knew you when the room was cold Before they carved your name in silver and gold When every little kindness meant much more Than all the voices at your door What are you searching for? Is it enough to hear them call you beautiful? Enough to make the emptiness feel full? Can a thousand hands undo What you still believe of you? You built a heaven out of hungry eyes And learned to live beneath their borrowed light They swear they’d break their bones to touch your hand But none of them could understand The person underneath the brand And still You let them in Just to hear them call you beautiful Just to make the emptiness feel full As if strangers saying your name Could teach your heart to lose its shame You let them in to feel adored Then wonder why you need them more My old friend, I remember when You pulled me from a place I’d never name again You sat beside me through the longest night And never asked to be my light You simply were You simply were But now I barely recognize The way you measure love in watching eyes And every room that rises when you speak Still cannot give you what you seek I wish you knew I wish you knew You never had to make them want you Never had to make them stay Never had to turn your sorrow Into something they could praise I would’ve known you without the stories I would’ve loved you without the name But you chose a world that calls you holy Over hands that knew your shame So take the flowers, take the stage Take every word they put beneath your name Perhaps one day when all their voices end You’ll think about your oldest friend And understand what fame could never do: They loved the dream they made of you I loved the one who never knew That being loved was something You were worthy of Before they ever looked at you
