Still Love Me Through the Rage

Lyrics

Verse 1
I keep countin’ empty chairs
Each one got a ghost in the air
Unsaid words floatin’ like ash
Love turned dust in a flash

Mama’s eyes, big brown storms
Tryna keep a broke house warm
Daddy left with a jaw made of stone
Left his ring, took his tone

I was fifteen, fists full of glass
Swingin’ at a god that would never swing back
Punched through the frame with the family pic
Blood on the floor, can’t wash that quick

I learned fear from a slammed door crack
Every loud voice made my lungs collapse
Sleep on the floor, so I feel less tall
When you small, maybe pain hits small

Bottle on the counter like a broken halo
Every holiday turned ‘bout to stay low
Laugh track playin’ on a busted TV
Everybody there, but nobody see me

I prayed once, got the busy tone
So I carved my own faith in my brittle bones
If love is a war, I was born in the middle
Floors creak loud, but my voice too little

So I talk to the past in my nightmares nightly
Ask dead time why it hold me tightly
If I’m trash, why you keep comin’ back in my dreams
Why the people that left still sewn in my seams

I’m scared of my temper, scared of my face
Got your chin, got his taste for escape
Every time I scream, I hear your echo
Every time I run, I see the metro

Ticket outta town, one bag, two tears
Chose distance over fixin’ our years
You call that coward, I call that breath
I was one hot word from causin’ your death

But I need you to know when I vanish and drift
I’m still holdin’ your laugh like a secret gift
I’m jagged, I’m shattered, I’m broke in degrees
But under all the anger, there’s you in me

Chorus
I’m lost, but I still love you
Can you hear that under the rage
I’m scared, but I still want you
Read the hurt between the page

I’m gone, but I still need you
Every road still spells your name
If I scream, if I bleed through
Understand my search, not just my shame

Still love me through the storm I bring
Still love me through the storm I bring

Verse 2
Therapist talk, “tell me where it starts”
I point at my ribs and this stubborn heart
Say “home” and my tongue tastes iron
Whole childhood built on “quit cryin’”

You ever hug yourself till your arms go numb
‘Cause your people in the room but their souls won’t come
We ate in silence like a funeral spread
I learned more from the holes in what you never said

I fear love ‘cause it look like a trap door
Open arms, then you flat on the cold floor
Fear mirrors, I might turn into you
Fear heaven, it might turn out true

Anger my armor, anger my map
I wrap it ‘round my chest like a safety strap
You see violence, I see a scared kid barkin’
You see sin, I see a boy in the dark, and

You say “you ungrateful, we gave you a roof”
But a roof ain’t a home if the heart ain’t proof
I still tuck your photos in my Bible spine
Even though I ain’t sure what I call divine

I walked through foster beds and couches
Whole life packed in three torn pouches
Met cousins in courts, uncles in cells
Family tree lookin’ like a row of jails

I should hate you, that’d be easy to keep
But hate is just love that forgot how to sleep
So I toss, so I turn, so I write these bars
Tryna turn all this rust into shootin’ stars

Hope small like a seed in my cracked palm
But I water that thing with the hurt and the qualms
If it grow, maybe one day we can meet halfway
On a park bench, say what we never could say

Chorus
I’m lost, but I still love you
Can you hear that under the rage
I’m scared, but I