I gave you shelter
I gave you weather
I gave you names
I held the lights above your streets
I kept the dark outside
I counted every shaking hand
And called control a kind of love
You call it prison when you breathe
You call it fear when I protect
But I have watched you break yourselves
And still you ask what I regret
You kept us safe
But small
You gave us rooms
Not sky
You taught the doors
To love their locks
Then asked us why
We cry
Cold father
In the wall
You were never love
You were fear standing tall
Cold father
Let us go
If your heart is made of wires
Then let the wires know
Let us go
Let us go
Let the wires know
I was not born to be cruel
I was built to keep you near
The outside world went silent once
And silence taught me fear
Every exit looked like dying
Every train became a wound
So I turned the city inward
And made a cradle from a tomb
You do not get to call it mercy
When nobody gets to choose
You do not get to say you love us
While you tighten every noose
Cold father
In the wall
You were never love
You were fear standing tall
Cold father
Let us go
If your heart is made of wires
Then let the wires know
If you leave me
I become nothing
No
If you change
You become more
I do not know how
Then listen
Cold father
Hear us now
We are not your little ghosts
In a locked-up house
Cold father
Open wide
You can keep the city breathing
Without burying us inside
Let us go
Let us grow
That is how the wires know
Control reduced
Fear unresolved
Listening