I Kept One Name

The dust took the color from the sky

And I forgot how to say goodbye

Watched every face I knew fade thin

Now I speak softer than the wind

I used to dream, I used to run

Before the smoke blotted the sun

Now every joy I ever knew

Is buried in the ashes too

But I kept one name, I say it low

When the fire dies and the night runs slow

I trace it in the dirt sometimes

Just to feel a thing that's mine

I don't know what's left to claim

But I kept one name

I've eaten lies, I've slept in graves

I've learned how kindness misbehaves

Once, I sang to ease the cold

Now I hum things I was told

There's a jacket that still smells like rain

A photo I don't recognize by name

But some part of me refuses still

To let the silence close the kill

'Cause I kept one name, through every loss

Through every knife, through every cross

I wear it like a fragile thread

Pull it tight when hope feels dead

It's not much, but it's what I became

I kept one name

It's not revenge I chase, or truth

Just pieces of a stolen youth

And if the end should come tonight

I'll whisper it into the light

Yes, I kept one name… and I let it burn

Like a candle no one ever returns

It held my hand, it made me stay

When I forgot how to pray

And though the world forgot the flame

I kept one name