Rising Tides (Version 2)

Verse

Sixteen years on a corner block where the streetlights never sleep

Momma's name tag fading soft behind the counter, cheap

I used to count the seconds till the sirens would stop

Now I'm counting rooftops like they're mine now, no more, no stop

Rising out of the static like a signal I couldn't lose

Every kid on that block got a different kind of proof

Some run from it fast, some fold beneath the weight

I turned my doubt into a fire under the ice and the gray

Pre-Chorus

Now they ask me how do you climb when you're still falling

How do you hold water in your chest when the ground keeps hollowing

I tell them it's the drowning that teaches you to float

Tell them the dark is where the strongest men are brought

Chorus

I was drowning, but I found my lungs under the ice

I was lost but this city taught me how to fly

Every scar on my collarbone got a different kind of name

Nowhere left for me to hide, now I'm rising with the tide

Verse

Corner store receipts turned into invoices and deals

Partnered with a kid who only spoke through his wheels

We moved in silence like a war that nobody called war

Every dollar was a body we kept out of the floor

Today he's standing beside me, chest full of gold

Talking foreign streets to investors cold

I'm still the same hands that lifted trash off the curb at three am

Just different kind of hunger now — a hunger to rise, to be the one who made it home

Pre-Chorus

Now they ask me how do you climb when you're still falling

How do you hold water in your chest when the ground keeps hollowing

I tell them it's the drowning that teaches you to float

Tell them the dark is where the strongest men are brought

Chorus

I was drowning, but I found my lungs under the ice

I was lost but this city taught me how to fly

Every scar on my collarbone got a different kind of name

Nowhere left for me to hide, now I'm rising with the tide

Bridge

Maybe being saved ain't always about falling into someone else's light

Sometimes it's about building your own — digging through the night

Every block got its own king, I'm not built for crowns or thrones

I just built a roof above my mother, left her room lit when she comes home

Chorus

I was drowning, but I found my lungs under the ice

I was lost but this city taught me how to fly

Every scar on my collarbone got a different kind of name

Nowhere left for me to hide, now I'm rising with the tide