Streetlights Burning Gold (Version 2)

Verse

Corner store window reflecting me at five years old

Neon bleeding gold where the sidewalk used to fold

I was told my name don't matter how I'm known

Learned how to speak it loud before I leave this block alone

Sixteen and standing at a doorway counting hands

Every kid who made it out still lives in these lands

The city's got its own way of rewriting what you meant

Turns your struggles into the only thing that was clean

Pre-Chorus

But what if we're not just numbers on a list?

What if our voices are the ones they've missed?

Chorus

So I'm holding up my hands like I own the street

Streetlights burning gold beneath my feet

Every scar is proof of something I can't lose

I was born in every single light that broke through

Verse

Now I'm standing on the platform watching trains come round

Half these faces look just like what I found

Same fire in their eyes, same questions still unsaid

So we start a chorus of our own instead

Bus shelter graffiti, broken-down but true

A generation writing history in the middle of the move

No one's giving us degrees for learning how to fight

We're building something with every wall that we ignite

Pre-Chorus

But what if we're not just numbers on a list?

What if our voices are the ones they've missed?

Chorus

So I'm holding up my hands like I own the street

Streetlights burning gold beneath my feet

Every scar is proof of something I can't lose

I was born in every single light that broke through

Bridge

Maybe we don't need a name to hold our ground

Maybe this whole block has always been the crown

Every kid on these corners knows the same refrain

That the gold was here, it just needed someone to believe again

Chorus

So I'm holding up my hands like I own the street

Streetlights burning gold beneath my feet

Every scar is proof of something I can't lose

I was born in every single light that broke through