learn to exit the body, a ghost through a wall
but it's not long before you're not welcome back in
and you hover above yourself, watching the lights
turning on and off, on and off behind the windows

you know people want you, they think that you're home
but you don't know if you're still alive, so you don't
even think about how your house might not be safe
you don't know how to show up, only how to fade

and now you're getting pins and needles
wakening you in strange ways
find the hands working the stitches
are yours and you make them obey

and if you want to feel the sweetness
of surviving until now
first you'll have to feel your weakness
cause not all you've done will make you proud
you keep on haunting your own house

let's go for a drive
we're the only light
on the road as far
as the eye can see
alone with you
in the shadows of pines
I should have known
not to cross the yellow line

if you've already forgiven me
why do I feel like I'll never be clean
days, weeks, and months go by with no change
can't seem to bring myself to believe

it's a cool summer night
you're behind the wheel
but I know you're not telling me
what you really feel
there's a warmth, there's a whisper
I choose to ignore
but I've made this choice before

if you accept my apology
why do I still feel so sorry
weeks, months, and years and I'm running in place
long after you've gone away

and everybody always told me that I needed thicker skin
people kept on taking parts of me that weren't theirs to take
never knowing where another person ends and I begin
without walls, I couldn't keep myself or anyone else safe

a knot I've tried to undo many
times, I'm tangled in the vines
and I don't know how long I'll be here
don't know how to make it right

I've asked for mercy, asked for patience
asked for blades against my skin
a bitterness, and I can feel
how bad my body wants revenge

and still there is something telling me if
you cannot forgive you cannot move on
you want to get strong, climbing hand over fist
but you keep losing grip when you try to hold on
compassion's a thing you know how to give
but when you try to take it, it just feels wrong
and still there is something telling me if
you cannot forgive you cannot move on

you want to untangle yourself from the tethers
and have a body to call your own
instead of a shell that has left you indebted
to every person to whom you've done harm
you want to repair the things you have broken
but some of them won't answer when you call
instead come the whispers telling you if
you cannot forgive you cannot move on