Lyric

I woke up nailed to borrowed wood

Grain by grain they fixed what bled

Hands that swore they knew me well

Replaced the parts they said were dead

Every scar was labeled “old”

Every truth a usable lie

They said, “You’ll float once more tonight”

As they scraped another “I”

If a memory is sanded down

Does it still remember pain

If I’m rebuilt plank by plank

Tell me, who’s holding my name

If every piece is new and clean

Am I still the one who came

Through the storm, through fire and loss

Through the wreckage and the flame

Say I’m seaworthy again

But am I still the same hull

I hear my voice in different tones

Echoes tuned to fit the time

Words I never chose to say

Still signed with hands that look like mine

In the harbor of approval

I’m polished thin as gold

But something sinks when no one sees

A weight too deep to hold

If the compass spins by vote

Does north forget its name

If I’m rebuilt plank by plank

Tell me, who’s holding my name

If every piece is new and clean

Am I still the one who came

Through the storm, through fire and loss

Through the wreckage and the flame

Say I’m seaworthy again

But am I still the same hull

Put the discarded boards in line

Call them relics of my past

If you reassemble what was me

Which one of us will last

If two ships answer to my soul

Sailing different truth-filled lies

Don’t ask which one is really me

Ask which one remembers why

No christening resolves the doubt

No flag can end the war

Between the thing that stayed afloat

And what was me before

If I’m rebuilt plank by plank

Let the question ring and stay

I am every cut and change

I am what they took away

I’m the journey, not the frame

Not the verdict, not the claim

I don’t need the same old hull

To know I sailed the same

Call me broken, call me new

Both are honest, both are true