you always knew

You've seen this light before it lives behind your eyes you just couldn't see it through the smoke and through the lies You thought it was the fire you thought it was the pain you thought something outside you had to call you by your name But nobody gave you this nobody lit the match you walked into the burning and you never once looked back And somewhere in the middle of the road that never ends you stopped asking to be rescued and you started to— You always knew you always knew it was never about surviving it was always about you You always knew somewhere deep and dark and true the fire didn't make you you were already burning you always knew Remember how it started remember how it stung remember thinking maybe you were just too far gone Remember all the mornings you showed up half alive remember doing it again just to make it to five That wasn't luck that carried you that wasn't grace or fate that was something in your bones that refused to break And now you're standing somewhere on the other side of it and you're looking at the person that you always— You always knew you always knew it was never about surviving it was always about you You always knew somewhere deep and dark and true the fire didn't make you you were already burning you always knew Nobody tells you when you're in it that the thing keeping you going is you Not the words not the music not the people in your corner though God knows they help too But in the room at three in the morning when it was just you and the dark— you chose morning Every single time you chose to see the light every single time you got back up and— You always knew you always knew it was never about surviving it was always about you You always knew somewhere deep and dark and true the fire didn't make you you were already burning you always knew "Ash in my lungs, smoke in my veins..." "I was built in the wreckage..." "I'll rise from the flames."