Echoes of me haunt me.

My scars are all out in the open.
While my soul lies dying within.
A smile helps pretend that I’m coping,
Yet in the morning, the birds still don’t sing.

In my mind, there are echoes still shouting.
A mirage of who I once used to be.
The dark thoughts leave me doubting.
In the shadows… is that really me?

I’ll wander down roads for the answer,
For what leaves me so broken inside.

Chasing the light, in case it’s healing.
But I’ll learn in the darkness, the truth tends to hide.

In that darkness, I start to crumble.
My body left a bare, empty shell.
I’ll hear the drums of war begin to rumble.
There, within my own personal hell.

But even in ash, there is ember,
A flicker refusing to die.
Though the dark tries hard to dismember,
There’s strength in each tear that I cry.

The mirror may still show the shadows,
But they no longer define my name.
I walk through the weight of the sorrows,

I rise, and I’m never the same.

Now dawn whispers softly in my silence,
The stillness is no longer my foe.
From ruin, I forged my defiance.
And carry a light all my own.