Your Words Are Echoes

I brought you my darkness, the ghosts from the war, begging for safe harbor right here on our floor, but you looked at my trauma and rolled both your eyes, "It's all in your head," just another disguise. I told you the thoughts almost took me away, you screamed, "What did I do to deserve this today?" I was fighting battles nobody could see, trying to survive what was happening inside of me. I wasn't asking you to fix me. I wasn't asking you to save me. I was asking you to see me. I was asking you to believe me. I carried your words like they were chains, I wore your judgment like my name, I let your anger define my worth, I let your version become my truth. But I found the voice that calls me son, I found the grace that says I'm not done, the past can speak, the scars can remain, but your words are echoes. I funded your family, I funded your pride, while I couldn't buy gas for a ten-minute ride, "We paid for your kids," you threw back in my face, while I watched my own life disappear in that place. I gave you my patience, I gave you my years, I gave you forgiveness while swallowing fear. I kept trying to rebuild what was falling apart, while losing pieces of my own heart. How long does a man disappear... Before somebody asks where he went? How much can a soul surrender... Before there is nothing left? This ain't revenge, this is resurrection, a man waking up from years of deception. This ain't hatred, this is breath in my chest, this is choosing life when death looked dressed. Like loyalty, duty, vows, and shame, like staying broken just to protect a name. But love doesn't require me to die in the flames, and grace doesn't ask me to remain the same. I carried your words like they were chains, I wore your judgment like my name, I let your anger define my worth, I let your version become my truth. But I found the voice that calls me son, I found the grace that says I'm not done. The past can speak, the scars can remain, but your words are echoes. You don't own me anymore. Your words are echoes, your anger is gone, I walked through the fire and I kept moving on. I don't need your permission to finally be free, I know who I am and who God made me be. I carried your words like they were chains, I wore your judgment like my name, I let your anger define my worth, I let your version become my truth. But I found the voice that calls me son, I found the grace that says I'm not done. The past can speak, the scars can remain, but your words are echoes. You don't own me anymore.