Cast down with open hands

(Verse 1)

I was raised in a kingdom of watching eyes

Where the meek learned early how to memorize

Every tremor before it could take its form

Like a choir boy bracing for holy storm

They said, “Child, there’s a gift in the way you see—

How you kneel to another’s misery”

So I bent ‘til my back learned the shape of grace

With a borrowed sorrow upon my face

(Pre-Chorus)

Oh, I was taught to listen where Heaven wouldn’t speak

To be strong for the broken, and silent for the weak

(Chorus)

So I carried their sins like a fallen son

Cast down, but the work not done

Every wound they confessed, I would make it mine

Like a sacred sign

Oh, I wore every grief like a crown of thorns

Felt reborn in the torn

But what kind of God leaves a soul this way—

Half in light, half decayed?

(Verse 2)

There were halos cracked in the ones I’d save

There were devils dressed in the ones who gave

And I couldn’t tell where the line was drawn

Between what was right and what I’d become

Laid my hands like a rite on their aching heads

Spoke in tongues of the things they never said

‘Til their darkness took root in the breath I’d take

Like a pact I was born to break

(Pre-Chorus)

Oh, I mistook their fire for a holy test

Now there’s ash where I laid to rest

(Chorus)

I was buried in sins that were never mine

Like a cross I was made to climb

Every tear that they wept, I would bleed it too

Like the chosen do

Oh, I gave ‘til my name was a thing erased

Just a vessel of grace

But salvation don’t ask you to disappear

Just to keep someone near

(Bridge)

If I’m cast from the gates for refusing this—

For unlearning the martyr’s kiss

Then let Heaven close its doors to me

I will choose to be free

Was I angel, or just undone?

By the weight of everyone

Let me fall from the need to atone

For a suffering not my own

(Break / Whispered)

Not every soul is mine to save

Not every cross is mine to raise

(Final Chorus)

I lay down every crown they gave in pain

Every borrowed chain

I am flesh, I am fire, I am not divine

I don’t need to shine

Oh, the curse was believing love required

I be self-expired

Now I walk where the broken and whole both stand

With an empty, open hand

(Outro)

Let the heavens write me out their lore

I am not what I was before

No more altar, no more throne—

What I carry… is mine alone