Lyric

Painted eyes

Open still

Gold around the view

If you thought the room forgot

It was looking back at you

You crossed the hall so calmly

With your practiced gentle face

As if the walls were only walls

As if the gold had no weight

I stood beneath the portraits

With my hands in perfect place

Every old and painted eye

Had already learned your face

I did not need to name it

I did not need to move

The room had kept its manners

And saved the worst of you

Portraits never blink

They only learn your face

Every lie you carried

Found its proper place

I was not the woman

Framed inside your view

Portraits never blink

And now they look through you

You smiled toward the staircase

Like nothing had been seen

But the varnish held the hour

In a colder kind of sheen

Every frame was patient

Every mouth was still

The silence looked expensive

And sharpened on the sill

You thought the night was finished

You thought the house was kind

But every polished corner

Had kept you in its mind

Portraits never blink

They only learn your face

Every lie you carried

Found its proper place

I was not the woman

Framed inside your view

Portraits never blink

And now they look through you

We saw the hand

We saw the door

We saw the mouth

Ask for more

We kept the face

We kept the name

We kept the hour

Inside the frame

I used to be the figure

You arranged beneath the light

A pretty little silence

Trained to make the damage bright

Now I stand with all the portraits

On the side that does not plead

I became the gaze itself

And made the looking bleed

Portraits never blink

They only learn your face

Every lie you carried

Found its proper place

I was not the woman

Framed inside your view

Portraits never blink

And now they look through you

Portraits never blink

They do not turn away

Every hidden gesture

Finds a wall that makes it stay

I was not the ornament

You thought you could undo

Portraits never blink

And now the room sees you

When the candles lowered

Nothing left the wall

I walked out of the picture

And the portraits watched you fall