The Names I Keep

Lyrics

[Intro]
Hearth-smoke in my clothes, first frost on my face
Salt opens the air like a door I have to take

[Verse 1]
They said, keep the home while the men take the weather
Count ash and winters, stack wood together
But an empty oar calls, worn smooth by years
By names I don't carry, by other hands' fears
I strap the round shield, leather cuts my arm
It smells like rain and metal and harm
My breath is a spark in the cold before light
I taste the black water and square to the night

[Pre-Chorus]
If I vanish now, I vanish unnamed
So I close my grip till my knuckles are flame
The oar knows their ghosts, but it learns my weight
I push past the breakers and I choose my fate

[Chorus]
I was not born to wait by the fire
Not carved for the corner, not built for the quiet
Let the salt write lines in the smoke of my life
I pull, I pull, till the dark turns white
Hear my name hit the mast like a wire
I was not born to wait by the fire

[Drop]

[Verse 2]
The keel answers back with a voice in my bones
Cold knits my jaw, and the wind throws stones
Spray finds my lashes, my hands run raw
But the fear I brought breaks its brittle jaw
I raise this shield, first time to the sky
And the world goes narrow where the arrows fly
Old words fall off me like coals from a grate
I row my own war into weather and fate

[Pre-Chorus 2]
I draw a straight line on the tide with one stroke
The rope sings a hymn only brave hands know
The oar learns my rhythm, the dark learns my knees
My doubt hardens down into something that frees

[Chorus 2]
I was not born to wait by the fire
Not written in ash, not promised the quiet
Let the salt and the thunder be the ink under me
I call my own battle and it answers in waves
I was not born to wait by the fire
I was born to answer the sea

[Bridge]
If they call me back to embers, I won’t go
I carry first frost like a banner on my cheekbone
I breathe in the brine till it burns clean through
My war is my name, and I say it true

[Violin Solo]

[Final Drop]
I was born to answer the sea (answer the sea)
With my hands, with my breath, with my name on the lee
I was born to answer the sea
Shield up, eyes wide, let the black water speak
I was born to answer the sea (answer the sea)
Not a fire’s soft light, but the storm under me
I was born to answer the sea

[Outro]
Hearth-smoke behind me, salt in my teeth
I row my name forward till the dark breaks clean