Not the Monster

**[Verse 1]**

They call me reckless like they know the road I've crossed,

Counting all my wrong turns, never what they cost.

You saw the sparks fly from the wreckage in my chest,

But never saw the child inside learning not to rest.

I grew up reading danger in the tilt of someone's jaw,

Measuring every silence like a threat I couldn't ignore.

By the time I learned affection, I had mastered escape,

Turning every open window into another way to break.

**[Pre-Chorus]**

So when I flinch at kindness, don't confuse it with disdain,

Some doors only open carrying the weight of yesterday.

**[Chorus]**

I'm not the monster living in the stories that you tell,

I'm the smoke that found a body after years of breathing hell.

Every sharpened edge you fear was once a place that bled,

Every war behind my eyes began with words that weren't said.

And if you need a villain so your world can stay the same,

Spend one night inside my bones and then repeat my name.

**[Verse 2]**

You call it madness; I call it muscle memory,

The way a hand pulls back before it's even seen the heat.

Old alarms still ring beneath the floorboards of my mind,

Some disasters leave the building but refuse to leave behind.

So don't stand there with your verdict wrapped in sympathy,

You inherited your peace—I had to fight for mine daily.

**[Pre-Chorus]**

And if I hold too tightly, if I push away too fast,

It's hard to trust tomorrow when you're built from watching things not last.

**[Chorus]**

I'm not the monster living in the stories that you tell,

I'm the smoke that found a body after years of breathing hell.

Every sharpened edge you fear was once a place that bled,

Every war behind my eyes began with words that weren't said.

And if you need a villain so your world can stay the same,

Spend one night inside my bones and then repeat my name.

**[Bridge]**

I am not proud of every fire.

Some of them burned the wrong things down.

I built myself from leftover pieces,

Bent nails, cracked glass, borrowed light.

**[Final Chorus]**

I'm not the monster living in the stories that you tell,

I'm the proof that something broken doesn't always wish you well.

I'm the echo of a thousand nights nobody came to save,

Still standing in the morning, still crawling from the grave.

So judge me if it helps you draw the borders of your truth,

But every storm you blame on me began long before my youth.

And if you need a villain, I won't stop you from the role—

Just know you're pointing at a wound, not at the whole.

**[Outro]**

Maybe I'm not innocent.

Maybe I'm not right.

But I learned to make a home inside the longest nights.