Blessing is a Black Dog (version 2)

Verse

Crows circle what the winter left behind

Salt on my tongue where the blood still winds

Steel in the water — no name to claim

Just the echo that says nothing again

Every village has a mouth it can't close

Every hand I owe is written in frost

I eat the shadow before I break the bone

Nothing feeds me but what I don't possess

No lord here calling me out from the gate

No priestess praying for my soul to wait

Just the wind that carries the old men's names

And nothing left of them but what still remains

Pre-Chorus

So tell me — is it mercy or just habit?

Is this life a gift wrapped in black leather

Chorus

I walk where blessing is a black dog at my heel

The wind says thank you like it owes the same deal

Hands that gave me nothing but still kept me whole

That's the only holy I was ever told

Verse

Raven on the doorpost scratching out his name

Snowflakes fall like ashes from an empty flame

I carry the fire of men who never made it home

It burns inside my gut but it won't ever belong

Every wound is a map that I don't read out loud

Every silence that comes back when the winter lets go — that's proud

The world forgets my face before I'm even gone

So I write mine in ice before I move along

Pre-Chorus

So tell me — is it mercy or just habit?

Is this life a gift wrapped in black leather

Chorus

I walk where blessing is a black dog at my heel

The wind says thank you like it owes the same deal

Hands that gave me nothing but still kept me whole

That's the only holy I was ever told

Bridge

Ask the earth what made this landscape mine — not gold

Ask the cold why it holds when everything else goes blind

I don't need a crown or a choir to call me king

Just the wind that still remembers where I came from and how long it sings

Chorus

I walk where blessing is a black dog at my heel

The wind says thank you like it owes the same deal

Hands that gave me nothing but still kept me whole

That's the only holy I was ever told