The iron gates are rusted shut at the edges of my chest

A heavy suit of armor just to pass the bitter test

I built these walls of granite stone to keep the cold away

But cracks began to widen in the fading light of day

Beneath the layers of the grit and years of steady rain

Lies a spirit bent and twisted by the shadow of his pain

He is reaching through the static for a hand to finally hold

A story left unfinished that was never meant for gold

From the electricity of a single touch upon his face

To the weight of new survival in a tiny soul's embrace

Just a man whose frame is fractured trying to learn what healing means

Finding beauty in the wreckage and the spaces in between

One spark ignited fires where the timber had gone dry

A sudden soft collision underneath a charcoal sky

The armor started peeling like the bark from dying trees

I found myself descending to my scarred and weary knees

The silence of the lonely years was broken by a sound

As the fortress I inhabited came tumbling to the ground

The jagged edges soften when the dawn begins to break

There is more than just the sorrow in the choices that we make

I am stripped of every weapon and the pride I used to wear

Breathing in the mercy of the morning winter air

He is reaching through the static for a hand to finally hold

A story left unfinished that was never meant for gold

From the electricity of a single touch upon his face

To the weight of new survival in a tiny soul's embrace

Just a man whose frame is fractured trying to learn what healing means

Finding beauty in the wreckage and the spaces in between

Now I cradle all the future in the hollow of my palm

A frantic heart is settling into a steady calm

The miracle of breathing in a life I helped to start

Is the only thing that matters to this mending human heart

I look into the mirror at the lines around my eyes

No longer hiding secrets or the master of disguise

A father and a lover and a soul no longer lost

Counting up the mercy and forgetting all the cost

The hardening is over and the warmth is flooding in

This is where the struggle ends and where the light begins

The jagged edges soften when the dawn begins to break

There is more than just the sorrow in the choices that we make

I am stripped of every weapon and the pride I used to wear

Breathing in the mercy of the morning winter air

He is reaching through the static for a hand to finally hold

A story left unfinished that was never meant for gold

From the electricity of a single touch upon his face

To the weight of new survival in a tiny soul's embrace

Just a man whose frame is fractured trying to learn what healing means

Finding beauty in the wreckage and the spaces in between