Old Alarms

OLD ALARMS

It’s GrizzlyJones… It’s time…

Drop da beat… drop it…

House is quiet.

Why’s my chest so loud?

Learned to read a room before I learned to read,

Knew which floorboards talked underneath my feet.

Now a door shuts hard and I’m halfway gone,

Thirty years old with my childhood on.

You say, “I’m tired,” I hear, “I’m leaving,”

Start building a case when there ain’t no reason.

Got a good thing here, but I check for cracks,

Keep one eye on love, one eye looking back.

I can make a courtroom out of one cold stare,

Put words in your mouth that were never there.

Then I hate myself for the fight I start—

Trying to stand guard with a busted heart.

These old alarms keep waking me,

Ringing like the past is where I’m supposed to be.

I know this room, I know your face,

Why’s yesterday standing in your place?

I don’t wanna make you pay

For somebody else who walked away.

Turn down the fear, let the truth come through—

These old alarms ain’t proof of you.

Got rules in my head I ain’t ever agreed to:

“Don’t get comfortable; they’re gonna leave you.”

“Keep your mouth shut.” “Never need too much.”

Then I wonder why I flinch at a gentle touch.

Every kindness comes with a price in my mind,

So I search for the hook till I miss what’s kind.

You reach for my hand, I reach for a reason

To call this a lie before I believe it.

But tonight I stopped with my keys in my fist,

Said, “I’m scared right now. Can we sit with this?”

No slammed screen door, no gravel spray,

Just a hard conversation and I chose to stay.

These old alarms keep waking me,

Ringing like the past is where I’m supposed to be.

I know this room, I know your face,

Why’s yesterday standing in your place?

I don’t wanna make you pay

For somebody else who walked away.

Turn down the fear, let the truth come through—

These old alarms ain’t proof of you.

Little kid listening down the hall,

You shouldn’t have had to hear it all.

You kept us breathing the best you could…

You can rest. I’ll check if we’re good.

I won’t call every warning wrong,

But I’ll ask what set it off this long.

These old alarms still wake in me,

But I’m learning fear ain’t prophecy.

Feet on the floor, say the date,

Let this moment have its own shape.

I don’t have to heal today

To choose one thing a different way.

Turn down the fear, let the truth come through—

I’m more than what I learned to do.

House is quiet…

Tonight, I stayed.