I lived in your heart when it was
shimmering with rainbows,
pumping life's stream through veins
I could've swam within forever.

I stayed when all within began
to rage with dark storms,
new torrents pouring,
obliterating a sacred harbor .

There's a price when
we promise to stay.

A silent contract signed
with ink that is too unique
to know how to fade away.

So after all the storms
decimate how you want me,
when the sudden violence
of a heart's new demands
strand me in foreign territory...

I became a wandering specter,
the remnant you may feel
humming our lullaby as you sleep,
the soft phantom caressing
as you dream in shapes that hurt
far too much to touch and understand.

And the rage I may carry
is a stone where flesh
once only knew how to sing,
the pain of living inside someone
and not knowing how to leave...

I stay within you now,
keeping all of your secrets
signed upon my raw skin,
ink too unique to know
how to fade away in time.

It's the price we pay,
the storm we face.

When we make
a promise to stay.