Return to the Shallows

Entombed in pressure below the sunless years

Where seconds rot and centuries disappear

I wore the dark like armor on my skin

A name dissolved where the depths begin

Cathedrals drowned in trenches without end

I watched the world forget me, then pretend

That I was legend, salt and bone

A ghost entangled in the undertow

The abyss spoke in a language of force

And carved my will into its course

Ride the ancient tide, carry me home

From the weight of forever to the edge of stone

I rise with the pull of a memory's call

I return to the shallows, or I don't return at all

Oceans aged while I stood still

Empires bloomed and bent to will

Above the waves, the sky was reborn

While I slept where light is torn

Currents sang of forgotten shores

A bare breath of open doors

The tide remembers what time erased

It knows the path, it knows my face

The deep released its iron hold

As the ancient motion stirred the cold

Ride the ancient tide, carry me home

From the weight of forever to the edge of stone

I rise with the pull of a memory's call

I return to the shallows, or I don't return at all

I am older than the fear of drowning

Older than the stars that fell

I have worn the silence like a crown

And learned the shape of hell

Pressure breaks, time unravels

Flesh remembers the way back!

Ride the ancient tide, tear me free

From the black infinity beneath the sea

Let the surface burn my eyes, let the world reappear

I return to the shallows after incalculable years

Salt in my lungs, light on my scars

I rise from the deep, still bearing the dark

The abyss recedes, but it knows my name

I came back changed... I came back the same

I came back the same