THE QUIET ROOM

Lyrics

Verse 1 He learned to walk soft through a crowded house Say “I’m alright” before they could ask it out Keeps his coat off the chair, keeps his name off the wall Like taking up nothing means nothing at all He apologizes when somebody holds the door For needing a minute, for needing anything more And every little kindness cuts him somewhere deep ’Cause owing somebody love is another debt to keep Pre-Chorus There’s a room inside his head Where the noise finally ends He visits every evening But he never tells his friends Chorus In the quiet room, he’s happy In the quiet room, he’s sane There’s no thunder in his bloodstream There’s no arguing with his brain Nobody has to worry Nobody has to stay Nobody has to carry him Or ask if he’s okay And God, it sounds like heaven When you’ve hurt this long inside So every day he lives here He dreams somewhere else he’s fine Verse 2 He’s rehearsed disappearing a thousand different ways Then pictured all the trouble he would leave in its place Someone making phone calls, someone missing work Someone cleaning up the pieces of somebody else’s hurt So he stays because he couldn’t stand To inconvenience them that way Funny how a man can call himself a burden Then carry everybody’s pain He laughs at all the right times Shows up when he said he would Nobody sees the war because He got so damn good Pre-Chorus At building little windows No one else can see Looking through at someplace He imagines he is free Chorus In the quiet room, he’s happy In the quiet room, he’s sane Nothing hurts and nothing matters Nothing calls him by his name Nobody needs an answer Nobody needs a thing There’s finally enough silence He can’t hear his own mind scream And God, it sounds like heaven When you’ve hurt this long inside So every day he lives here He dreams somewhere else he’s fine Bridge But maybe peace ain’t silence Maybe sane ain’t feeling numb Maybe being no inconvenience Ain’t the same as being loved Maybe the voice that calls him worthless Has been lying all along Maybe a man can hear a lie Every second for so long That eventually it sounds Exactly like his own And maybe all those people He’s been trying not to weigh Would rather carry something with him Than wake up with him gone one day Final Chorus So the quiet room is waiting Just like every night before Still promising him happiness From somewhere past the door But tonight he leaves it unopened Lets the noise remain instead Lets somebody hear the sentence He’s been finishing in his head “I don’t know how to be happy. I don’t know how to be sane. And I’m tired of being sorry For the space I fucking take.” Then somebody sits beside him Doesn’t fix him, doesn’t try And for once he is a burden— And nobody fucking dies. Outro Tomorrow might be ugly. His mind might start again. The quiet room will whisper Like it’s always been his friend. But tonight there’s someone breathing On the other side of the room. And maybe being alive Doesn’t have to feel good yet. Maybe tonight It just has to be true.