Volcano in Me

Verse 1]

Every night the mountain rumbled

Through the walls and down the hall

I could hear the glasses breaking

Mama crying soft and small

Doors would shake like thunder cracking

Pictures fell down from the heat

I was hiding with my heartbeat

Trying not to make a peep

But in the morning came the ashes

Purple skies around her eyes

She said, “Baby, it’s alright now”

While another part of her died

I was little

He was lava

Burning everything he touched

But I loved her enough to stand there

Even when I shook too much

My daddy was a volcano

Red smoke living in his chest

Everybody learned to run when

Magma started leaking out his breath

I tried to be a wall around her

Tiny hands against the flame

But mountains don’t care who they’re hurting

When they explode in rage

Now we’re driving far from the fire

Watching ashes fade behind

But I’m scared there’s a volcano

Growing somewhere deep inside

One night hotter than the others

I stepped into the falling ash

Said, “You gotta stop hurting Mama”

Then the lightning struck so fast

I remember how she screamed then

Like the earth itself had split

When she saw his fire hit me

Something finally snapped in it

She grabbed my hand without a suitcase

Didn’t even stop for shoes

Rain was pouring as we ran from

Everything we used to lose

My daddy was a volcano

Red smoke living in his chest

Everybody learned to run when

Magma started leaking out his breath

I tried to be a wall around her

Tiny hands against the flame

But mountains don’t care who they’re hurting

When they explode in rage

Now we’re sleeping somewhere quiet

No more trembling through the night

But I’m scared there’s a volcano

Buried somewhere deep inside

Mama says, “You’re not your father

Fire ain’t the same as light”

Still I clench my fists when angry

Terrified of what I might

Become

If all that thunder

Found a home inside my bones

What if someday someone I love

Looks at me the way she looked at him?

My daddy was a volcano

But maybe I don’t have to be

Maybe mountains can stay sleeping

Maybe anger doesn’t have to bleed

’Cause I remember her arms around me

In the rain beneath black skies

She said, “The brave don’t become monsters

Just because they’ve seen one rise”

Now the ashes keep on falling

But I finally see the truth

A volcano took my childhood

But it won’t take who I choose

Some nights I still hear rumbling

Even when the world is still

I wake up scared the mountain followed

Over every distant hill

Mama says the earth keeps shaking

Long after the fire dies

But every day we wake in freedom

Is another sunrise

And when I feel that anger rising

Boiling underneath my skin

I remember brave ain’t never

Learning how to never feel again

It’s choosing not to pass the fire

Choosing love instead of fear

The volcano ends with me now

It stops right here