Softly breaking

Intro (spoken / airy) I used to think love was quiet. I didn’t know quiet could hurt like this. Verse 1 He never had to raise his voice to make me doubt my own reality, because his calm was always sharp enough to cut straight through me. He’d look at me like I was the problem for feeling anything at all, and somehow I started shrinking just to keep the peace in our home. He would call me “too sensitive” with a smile that looked so harmless, and I would swallow every word I wanted to say until my throat felt heavy. I stopped trusting my instincts, stopped trusting my memories, and I didn’t even notice I was leaving myself behind a little more each day. Pre-Chorus And I kept trying to explain my heart to someone who only listened for control. Chorus (Drop / long melodic lines) I’m breaking so quietly in a house that still looks like love from the outside, and I’m smiling through the silence while my whole body holds the violence. Every day I feel the ache in my chest, in my bones, in the way I breathe, like my nervous system is screaming for me to finally choose me. I’m so tired of apologizing for the pain that he keeps planting in my mind, and sometimes I feel so empty I don’t want to exist in any kind of time. But I don’t want to leave this world — I just want to leave this life with him, I want to come back to myself again, I want to learn how to live again. Verse 2 He would give me warmth in the smallest doses, just enough to keep me hoping, and then he’d take it back so fast I’d blame myself for even reaching. He’d call it “talking” when he would dissect me for hours with perfect logic, until I couldn’t even remember what I was trying to protect in the first place. And if I cried, he’d turn it into evidence that I was unstable, like my tears were a weapon and not a sign that I was breaking. So I learned how to be quiet, how to be “easy,” how to be less, until my own reflection started looking like a stranger I didn’t recognize. Pre-Chorus 2 And the scariest part is how normal it became, to feel afraid in the place I used to call my home. Chorus (Drop) I’m breaking so quietly in a house that still looks like love from the outside, and I’m smiling through the silence while my whole body holds the violence. Every day I feel the ache in my chest, in my bones, in the way I breathe, like my nervous system is screaming for me to finally choose me. I’m so tired of apologizing for the pain that he keeps planting in my mind, and sometimes I feel so empty I don’t want to exist in any kind of time. But I don’t want to leave this world — I just want to leave this life with him, I want to come back to myself again, I want to learn how to live again. Bridge (Liquid breakdown / emotional peak) And I know now that love doesn’t feel like walking on glass in your own kitchen, and love doesn’t punish you with silence until you beg for forgiveness. Love doesn’t rewrite your truth and call it “communication,” and love doesn’t make your body hurt just for trying to be human. I know now that I was never too much, I was just giving my softness to someone who needed power to feel safe. And I can forgive myself for staying, because I didn’t stay because I was weak — I stayed because I believed in love. Final Chorus (Drop / brighter) I’m not breaking quietly anymore in a house that only looks like love from the outside, because I’m done protecting his image while my body pays the price. I can feel my breath coming back, I can feel my heartbeat returning to me, like the earth is pulling me home to a version of myself I thought I’d lost. I’m done apologizing for the pain that he kept planting in my mind, and I’m done disappearing just to keep a man comfortable in his lies. I don’t want to leave this world — I just want to leave this life with him, I want to come back to myself again, I want to learn how to live again. Outro (soft) I didn’t lose myself. I just went quiet. And now I’m coming back.