yeah

i heard you

i heard every word

i know that place

I know the ceiling you keep hitting your head on

I know the quiet you do things in so nobody wakes

I know the loop the rerun, the relapse, the same damn crater

I've been the one sitting still while everything circled and waited

I wore that stillness like it was strength but it wasn't

I called it holding on but I was just too tired to move

And I sat in that and let it outlast everything good in me

Till I had nothing left to lose and that's when I finally chose

Not yet became not ever if I let it

So I stopped letting the darkness make my decisions

I been where you are and I'm telling you straight

You are not the wound you are what survived it

I know the pipe back I did it too, told myself not yet

Like delay was mercy, like waiting was some kind of plan

But not yet with no deadline is just no

And I had to look that in the face before I ran

Not away forward first time I ever ran toward something

Shaking like that finger in the face of everything that broke me

And I pointed back at it, I said I'm still here

You had every shot at me and I'm still standing notice

Not yet became not ever if I let it

So I stopped letting the darkness make my decisions

I been where you are and I'm telling you straight

You are not the wound you are what survived it

You said shouldn't you be screaming

I'm here to tell you yeah scream

But scream at the thing that held you down

Not at yourself for bleeding

You said hope it's not the end

I'm saying it's not even close

You got damage so do I

Damage don't mean done, it means you showed up and took it

The suffering sores, the circling, the sitting still in it

I did all of that and I'm on the other side talking to you

Which means there is another side

Which means you get there too

Find your one timeline yeah the old one broke, mine did too

Brand new hope ain't soft, it's the hardest thing you'll build

It's waking up and choosing when choosing feels impossible

It's staying when every single part of you says go

I know the baggage you held dear because it felt like yours

I know the sign to leave it that you saw and didn't take

I took mine late later than I should have but I took it

And late is not the same as never, hear me say it

I heard your song

I heard the not yet

I heard the almost

I heard the finally screaming at the end

And I'm here on the other side of that scream

telling you that's where it starts

not where it ends

you don't get to stop

not yet

not ever