Birth

[Verse 1]
The cocoon is tearing now
I don't know if I'm ready
The darkness was a kind of home
Terrible but steady
I learned to breathe in suffocation
Learned to see without the light
And now the membrane's giving way
And I'm not sure I want the fight

[Pre-Chorus]
Because emergence isn't rescue
It's not angels, it's not grace
It's being pushed through something breaking
It's forgetting how to brace
For the weight that isn't there now
For the dark that used to hold
What do you do with empty hands
When you've forgotten what to hold?

[Chorus]
This is what it feels like to be born
Covered in the mess of what I was
Gasping air I didn't know I needed
Shaking from a cold I've never known
Nothing here is clean, nothing here is ready
But something here is breathing on its own
This is what it feels like to be born
Ugly and impossible and real
Screaming at the light that doesn't care
That I'm not ready yet to feel

[Verse 2]
I'm grieving for the cocoon now
Isn't that insane?
The thing that nearly killed me
Is the thing I miss, the thing I blame
For teaching me that small was safe
That stillness meant survive
Now everything is movement
And I don't know how to be alive

[Pre-Chorus]
They don't tell you that the rescue
Feels like dying one more time
That the light that should be saving you
Burns before it shines
That the first breath after drowning
Isn't relief, it's just more need
That being born is learning hunger
When you thought you were complete

[Chorus]
This is what it feels like to be born
Covered in the mess of what I was
Gasping air I didn't know I needed
Shaking from a cold I've never known
Nothing here is clean, nothing here is ready
But something here is breathing on its own
This is what it feels like to be born
Ugly and impossible and real
Screaming at the light that doesn't care
That I'm not ready yet to feel

[Bridge]
But I'm here
I'm here
I survived the thing I wasn't sure I'd survive
And I don't know what I am now
But I know that I'm alive
Not healed, not whole, not ready
Not sure I want to be
But born
Just born
Something new that's also me

[Outro - raw, almost whispered, then building to one final line]
Ugly and impossible
Blood and light and cold
This is what becoming looks like
When you finally unfold
Not pretty
But beautiful
Not easy
But mine
I was born in the breaking
I was born
I was born
I was born this time