[Verse 1] They’d say, “Use your words,” when I was crying, like somewhere there was one I wouldn’t say. But I knew hot and hurt and don’t come near me, I knew wanting everybody far away. I knew the ceiling better than the reason, knew the sound a room made before it changed. There were whole things happening inside me years before I knew they had a name. [Pre-Chorus] So I called fear “nothing,” called anger “being bad,” called needing someone “sorry”— used the only words I had. [Chorus] I was there before I had language, I was feeling before I could explain. Some truths arrive inside the body long before the words can do the same. “Use your words.” Damn, I would’ve. Give me one that would’ve fit. I’ve spent half my life finding language for a life I’d already lived. [Verse 2] Then someone gave me “boundary,” and suddenly I saw how often mine had been erased. Someone gave me “shame,” and I could finally tell the difference between guilt and taking blame. I learned “grief” can start before you’re losing, learned “safe” is more than nobody getting hurt. Every word arrived obscenely late, but every one turned back and found me first. [Pre-Chorus] Every definition opened something time had packed away. Strange how learning one word later can rename an earlier day. [Chorus] I was there before I had language, I was feeling before I could explain. Some truths arrive inside the body long before the words can do the same. “Use your words.” Damn, I would’ve. Give me one that would’ve fit. I’ve spent half my life finding language for a life I’d already lived. [Bridge] Maybe that’s what I’ve been doing— translating someone small, taking every wordless thing she carried, giving grammar to it all. This was fear. This was grief. This was love with nowhere safe to land. This was anger learning volume when nobody would understand. And this— this wasn’t nothing. This was something without a name. There just wasn’t language in my mouth yet for the shape and weight of pain. So use your words now. Use every fucking one. Name the dark precisely. Name what should’ve never been done. Name the hurt. Name what mattered. Name what silence let become. [Final Chorus] I was there before I had language. Now I know what I couldn’t explain. I can walk back through those wordless rooms and call each thing by its name. “Use your words.” I think I will. I’ve got more than I had then. Some truths arrive before their language— but language can turn back for them.
