THE PRICE OF STAYING SMALL

Lyrics

(Verse 1) I learned early how to shrink myself To keep the room at ease How to soften every sharp desire And ask before I breathed I became fluent in adjustment Reading faces for a sign Turning instinct into caution Leaving appetite behind For years I called it being careful Called it wisdom, called it grace Never seeing what it cost me To keep disappearing from my place (Pre-Chorus) A life can look completely peaceful While something underneath goes numb There comes a point when being harmless Costs more than what you've overcome (Chorus) There is a price for staying small For cutting down what wants to grow For lowering every inner signal So nobody has to know There is a price for staying small It gets collected year by year In every dream postponed for comfort In every choice surrendered out of fear I would rather meet the consequence Of becoming what I came to be Than spend another lifetime Making myself easier to receive (Verse 2) I remember conversations Where my answer lived inside But I watched another person's mood And quietly changed my mind I mistook accommodation For some higher form of care Never noticed I was leaving Pieces of myself everywhere There is kindness without surrender There is love that doesn't bend There are boundaries without hatred There are truths that don't offend And the moment I understood this Something ancient shifted course I could care about another Without abandoning my force (Pre-Chorus) Expansion doesn't always thunder Sometimes it begins as heat A subtle refusal in the stomach When the old arrangement speaks (Chorus) There is a price for staying small For cutting down what wants to grow For lowering every inner signal So nobody has to know There is a price for staying small It gets collected year by year In every dream postponed for comfort In every choice surrendered out of fear I would rather meet the consequence Of becoming what I came to be Than spend another lifetime Making myself easier to receive (Verse 3) Then I started choosing differently Not recklessly, but clear Some people called it arrogance Because they preferred me without edges near Some connections lost their balance When I stopped carrying both sides Some affection disappeared When I no longer paid its hidden price That was painful, but revealing Not every bond survives your size Some relationships need weakness To keep their architecture alive So I watched what stayed beside me When I stopped becoming less And I learned that real connection Doesn't punish self-respect (Bridge) Growth has weight Growth has friction Growth rearranges every room What once fit around your body May become too tight too soon You cannot ask the seed To apologize for breaking earth You cannot ask a living thing To bargain with its worth Not everything that leaves you Was stolen or destroyed Sometimes space appears Because your life requires more (Breakdown) Shoulders back Jaw released Let the stomach find its ease Let the voice arrive unedited Let the movement finish clean No shrinking No inflation No performance of control Take the amount of space required For the life inside your soul (Verse 4) I no longer need to dominate To know that I have strength I don't need to make another smaller To inhabit my own length Power isn't constant pressure It doesn't need to fill the room Sometimes power is remaining steady While another person's storm moves through And sometimes power is departure When the structure asks too much Sometimes power is creating What nobody else can touch I have stopped negotiating With the future I can see Every day I choose expansion I recover more of me (Final Chorus) There was a price for staying small And I have paid enough of it With abandoned possibilities And years that couldn't quite begin There was a price for staying small But I cancelled the account I will not reduce my vision To the size another person can allow If becoming changes everything Then everything may have to change I would rather face the unknown Than remain comfortably contained (Outro) No more folding at the edges No more trimming back the shape No more living like existence Is permission I must take I am not here to overwhelm I am not here to hide I am here to occupy The full dimensions of my life