My Own Hand — Liva

Three in the morning, still wide awake
The window cracked to the warmth of May
Somebody's bike chain clicks down the street
And then it's just me and the dark again
I'm running it back, the whole evening
Every word I said, every word I didn't
Folding it smaller and smaller
Until it fits in one closed hand

I've done this for years, I know the shape of it
The way a small thing grows teeth in the night
I carried it like a stone sewn into my coat
And forgot it was a choice to carry at all
I rehearsed the worst of it a hundred times
Every way it could go wrong by morning
Lived each one in the blue of my room
While the actual night just passed me by

And nothing was holding me there
Nothing but my own two hands
I made the weight mean something
And it didn't, it didn't

It was never the dark
It was my own hand around the fear
I thought the weight had hold of me
But I was the one holding on
I was the one holding on

Morning came anyway, plain as the kettle's steam
And the ruin I'd rehearsed never came for me
The kitchen was just the kitchen, the light just the light
And the thing I'd been so sure of wasn't there
So I knelt down on the floor with it
And I opened up my hand at last
Let it roll off somewhere I couldn't see
Somewhere I didn't need to follow

I'm not ashamed, I'm just tired
Of being my own heavy weather
Of mistaking every quiet
For a thing that needs a fight

[Chorus | warmer, fuller | guitar, piano, bass, brushed drums | strings shimmer underneath]
It was never the dark
It was my own hand around the fear
I thought the weight had hold of me
But I was the one holding on
I was the one holding on

It was never the dark
It was my own hand around the fear
I thought the weight had hold of me
But I was the one holding on
I was the one holding on

I want to be someone who can sit
On the quiet side of a hard night
Who doesn't need to name the fear
To know that it will pass
Who knows that not all stillness
Is a door that needs to open
Who can let the dark just be the dark
Without making it the end

It was never the dark
It was my own hand around the fear
I thought the weight had hold of me
But I was the one holding on
And I'm letting it go now

Some Tuesday in May, the window still wide
I feel the old stone reaching back for my side
But I know its weight now, I know it by name
And I let the night air come in instead