Paper Skin Parade

(Verse 1)

You were born in a whisper beneath rust-colored skies

With a smile stitched in linen and stars in your eyes

I held your hands, they were cold, made of wax and of thread

You danced like a candle that flickers when fed

(Verse 2)

The carousel spun through a radio hum

With fathers in cages and mothers gone numb

And your voice cracked like thunder through a hallway of jars

Where we bottled our secrets and labeled them scars

(Chorus)

Oh, paper skin parade

Marching ghosts in lemonade

I kissed your name in windowpane

But you washed away in the rain

Now you float where the orchards grow

With a heartbeat no one knows

(Verse 3)

You drew maps on my ribs with a compass of light

Told me truth lives in shadows and dreams out of sight

We broke clocks in the attic, let time bleed and bend

Then you vanished like fog from the breath of the wind

(Bridge)

Through the cracks in the ceiling, I still hear you hum

To the beat of a war drum that never quite comes

And I sleep in your echo, curled under your tune

A boy made of splinters, a girl tied to moons

(Chorus)

Oh, paper skin parade

Spinning slow and unafraid

I called your name in windowpane

But it fell away like a stain

Now you bloom where the silence grows

With a heartbeat no one knows

(Outro)

So I carry your light in a jar made of bone

In the static of dreams where I'm never alone

Two heads, one song, in a flicker of flame

No face left to name, but I love you the same