The Fire Left You Standing

A breath of dawn in the dark street haze A pulse like prayer buried beneath the maze You walk those back alley shadows A quiet storm stitched into your soul Long nights cling to you Smelling of clove smoke and old regret But you keep your head low Your heartbeat steady as a bass note Streetlights flicker like a judgment Who notices when they burnout Your calloused hands bear the pain of too many dawns And still they reach for the next one anyway But you rise bearing the day And the world keeps snarling its teeth at you trying to grind you down to bone But you've danced through fire so many times Even the flames leave you Alone Yeah you Still walking that lonely highway Chasing dawn through the ash and clay Born from dust built for the struggle You let every hit harden Tempered And when the world said you were nothing You forged your name in the roar A jack of every battered trade You don't bow anymore You learned young that mercy's A coin most folks don't spend So you hammered tomorrow Into shape with whatever you had Pulled broken bits apart To stitch yourself back again A craftsman of survival When the nights turned cruel Brawling with your own doubt Choking down life's crooked deals But there's a rhythm in your bones A grit that won't burn out A low jazz hum wrapped around a grunge born star And the world keeps daring you to fall Keeps whispering that you're done But you've eaten darkness for breakfast Washed it down with the rising sun and a glass of rum Yeah you Still walking that lonely highway Chasing dawn through the ash and clay Born from dust built for the struggle You let every hit harden tempered And when the world said you were nothing You swallow the silence and spit fire A keeper of every broken vow You don't bow anymore You've been welded by heartbreak Tempered by nights that took too much But your hands Your calloused unforgiving hands Still lift still tremble Still choke tomorrow Into something that refuses to die Yeah you Still walking that lonely highway Chasing dawn through the ash and clay Born from dust built for the struggle You let every hit harden tempered And when the world said you were nothing You bite back the scream and keep moving A ghost of every grave you crawled out of You don't bow anymore You're the storm they can't ignore