The Unraveling Road

[Verse 1] The sun on the sill was a dusty gold plate On a table of silence I learned to hate. He'd measure my words with a micrometer's eye, And the dreams in my heart were the first things to die. I mended his socks by the stove's feeble breath, While stitching a shroud for my spirit's slow death. The map of my life was a wall without art, But I felt the first thread come loose in my heart. [Chorus] Oh, the unraveling road, it starts with a thread, A whisper you hear in the cold of your bed. You pull it, and follow where you cannot see, To a place you might choose, to a self you might be. It's a dangerous grace, leaving tracks in the snow, With no promise of shelter where this wind might blow. [Verse 2] I packed my old valise with a photograph torn, A locket gone tarnished, a dress somewhat worn. I bought a bus ticket to a faraway town, With the rain on the window for wiping tears down. I slept in a station where the pigeons took flight, And I learned how to be my own lantern at night. I worked in a diner, pouring bitter black brew, And found my reflection was somebody new. [Bridge] The fear, it was real, like a stone in the shoe, And the ghosts of the "shoulds" had their say, it is true. But I found a clean rhythm in walking alone, In the weight of my paycheck, the key to my own. I hummed my own tune as I walked to the sea, And the melody, slowly, belonged just to me. [Verse 3] I met him in spring, at the library door, A stack of old poetry tucked in his arm, and more. He talked of the tide pools and Saturn's bright rings, And he listened, he listened, to the song my heart sings. His hands weren't for holding me down or in place, But for lifting my chin to see hope in his face. We built a front porch where the morning light pours, Not on a contract, but on wide-open doors. [Chorus] Oh, the unraveling road led me right to his gate, Not to an ending, but a fortunate state. He sees the old mending, the patches I wear, And calls them my history, strength, and my dare. Now the road we walk on, we are choosing to make, With room for my silence, and room when I shake. [Outro] And sometimes at twilight, I'll pick up a stitch, Not from duty or fear, but a creative itch. To mend a work shirt for the man who is kind, With a thread that is finally of my own mind. And the needle moves easy, the cloth it is strong, In the house where I know that I fully belong. The first brittle thread, pulled so long ago, Led me through winter to this love, soft and slow.