A Place To Hide

[Verse 1] Behind the hanging coats where the shadows stayed still A little room inside the room, a pocket in the wall Light through the slats cut thin across the floor And every sound beyond the door grew teeth I counted thunder in my ribs Held my name beneath my tongue Learned how small a body gets When it wants to come undone [Chorus] This was a place to hide A place to disappear Where the dust knew all my prayers And the dark could almost hear I made myself a whisper I made myself a wire Till something in that silence Began to harden into fire [Verse 2 ] The house would shift, the walls would ring The floorboards spoke in codes I knew the weather by the weight Of footsteps down the hall Window cracked with midnight blue Shoes pointed toward the street I kept a whole escape route Folded underneath my heartbeat [Chorus] This was a place to hide A place to disappear Where the dust knew all my prayers And the dark could almost hear I made myself a whisper I made myself a wire Till something in that silence Began to harden into fire [Bridge ] Years later The door was still there The coats, the dust, the old low air But the shape inside that hiding place Had changed What once curled up Now stood [Final Chorus] This was a place to hide Now it’s a place I know A room that taught me how to vanish And eventually how to go The dark still knows my outline The storm still knows my name But something in that small space Did not stay small the same [Outro] Small dark space… Dust in the breath… I learned young How to leave without leaving Then one day How to leave