[Verse 1]
The calendar says twenty, soon the clock strikes twenty-one
But I’m still standing in that hallway, staring at the gun.
They look at me and see a woman, steady and refined
But I’m a graveyard of the secrets that I had to leave behind.
From fifteen to this moment, it’s been a jagged, blood-red line
I traded in my girlhood just to keep the others fine.
I don’t know how the air still finds its way into my chest
When I spent five years screaming while I laid my heart to rest.
[Pre-Chorus]
I grew up in a heartbeat, I grew up in a flash
Building up a kingdom from a pile of bone and ash.
I’m a mystery to the mirror, I’m a stranger to the light
Just a girl who learned too early how to survive the night.
[Chorus]
How am I still breathing? How am I still here?
When I’m made of five long winters and a thousand tons of fear.
I’ve been the shield and I’ve been the ghost, I’ve been the sacrifice
I’ve paid for every "next day" with a heavy, hollow price.
I survived the choices that my mother made for him
Now I’m standing on the shoreline, learning how to swim.
[Verse 2]
I look at twenty-one like it’s a planet far away
I never thought I’d see the sun move past that Tuesday gray.
The trauma is a shadow that’s grown tall as I have grown
It sits at every table, it’s the marrow in my bone.
I don’t show them how it hurts, I don't show them where I bleed
I just give them all the strength that I know I’m gonna need.
But sometimes in the silence, when the world is fast asleep
I wonder how a heart so broken finds the strength to keep.
[Bridge]
(The beat intensifies—industrial, dark, and pulsing)
I’m not fifteen anymore... but she’s still inside of me.
Asking how we made it out, asking if we’re free.
I don't have the answers, I just have the scars
I’m a collection of the wreckage and a handful of the stars.
(Vocal climbs to a haunting, ethereal high note)
I survived! I survived! I survived!
[Chorus]
How am I still breathing? How am I still here?
When I’m made of five long winters and a thousand tons of fear.
I’ve been the shield and I’ve been the ghost, I’ve been the sacrifice
I’ve paid for every "next day" with a heavy, hollow price.
I survived the choices that my mother made for him
Now I’m standing on the shoreline, learning how to swim.
[Outro]
(Music strips away to a low, vibrating synth)
Twenty-one is coming...
A birthday for a girl who wasn't supposed to stay.
I’m still here.
Against the odds, against the gun, against the ghost.
I’m still here.
(Fades out with the sound of a slow, steady heartbeat)
Manublueeyes