Beneath my skin

(low guitar hum, distant choir, crackling fire)

Stay back…

…No.

Come closer.

I built these walls from iron warning

Brick by brick, a disciplined flame

Learned real young if you love something loudly

The world finds a way to make you pay

So I kept my distance

Kept my hands clean

Kept my fury folded

Sharp and unseen

Then you laughed in the face of danger

Like fear was a language you never learned

God help me, woman…

You looked at fire

and never flinched when it burned

And I should’ve known

The second you smiled

You’d be the kind of trouble

Worth going wild for

You walk through fire like you know my name

Smile at the worst of me, call it flame

What kind of woman looks at ruin and grins?

Makes a home in the blaze beneath my skin

I should run

I should fight

Should shut every door and kill every light

But there you stand

Like the goddamn sun

And now I burn for someone

You throw yourself between teeth and violence

Like your life’s some debt you gotta repay

And every time I drag you back from danger

You just thank me like I saved the day

You infuriate me

You reckless thing

Got no sense of self-preservation

No fear of kings

And somehow when the night gets quiet

When the war in my head finally goes still

It’s your stupid grin I think about

That’s the part that gets me killed

I was made for battle

For standing guard

Not this helpless ache

Beating under armor

You walk through fire like you know my name

Smile at the worst of me, call it flame

What kind of woman looks at ruin and grins?

Makes a home in the blaze beneath my skin

I should run

I should fight

Should lock this heart away out of spite

But there you stand

Like the goddamn sun

And now I burn for someone

[Bridge] (drop everything but piano / low strings / explosive rise)

I have seen what fire does

What it takes

What it leaves

I have held ash in my hands

And called it mercy

So tell me why your touch

Feels nothing like destruction

Tell me why your name

Sounds so damn close to salvation

You walk through fire like you know my name

Smile at the worst of me, call it flame

What kind of woman looks at ruin and grins?

Makes a home in the blaze beneath my skin

If this is war

Then let me lose

If this is love

Then light the fuse

There you stand

Still choosing me

And God…

I have never burned this clean

(just vocals + crackling fire)

Stay back…

…please.

Because if you stay…

I won’t let you go.