Lyrics:

Your lullabies were whispered stone,
A quiet carved from wounds unknown.
You held me close, but never near,
Fed me calm, but never fear.

You stitched my mouth with threads of grace,
Taught me love had no soft place.
Your hands were gentle, firm, and still,
But never reached to show the will.

I learned to smile, to hide the ache,
To bow before the rules you’d make.
The more I cried, the less you stayed,
A shadow mother, self-betrayed.

I was a mirror you could not face,
A child repeating your disgrace.
The wounds you bore, you passed to me,
An heirloom wrapped in secrecy.

You gave me silence dressed as care,
An empty gaze, a hollow prayer.
I held my breath so you would stay,
But love like that just fades away.

They broke your voice when you were small,
Taught you to answer with nothing at all.
So when my heart reached out to yours,
You locked the hinges, sealed the doors.

You called it strength to turn aside,
To cut your need, to kill the tide.
But silence is a sharpened knife,
And now it carves through all my life.

I am the echo of your scars,
A child still reaching through the bars.
The curse you carried, blind, unseen,
Now lives in me, where you have been.

You gave me silence dressed as care,
An empty gaze, a hollow prayer.
I held my breath so you would stay,
But love like that just fades away.

I know you learned it, not your fault,
Your love was chained in someone else’s vault.
But still the child inside of me,
Cries for what will never be.

You gave me silence dressed as care,
But silence leaves the cupboard bare.
I begged for fire, I begged for rain,
But you could only give me pain.

The chain remains, the chain remains.

Cycles

Atlas I.