[Verse 1]
Used to sleep on a coat by the door
Mama worked late
Uncle cracked beers
Cracked jokes
Then his hands changed shape
Sirens in the window
Dinner came from a can
Learned to fight before I learned
How to trust a man
Judge read my story
Like a grocery list
Twenty years
One click
Steel on my wrist
Concrete pillow
Name scratched in my bunk
Tattooed my own hope
In a place built for rust
[Chorus]
Now I walk on hardwood
Not on cold gray stone
Got a key
Got a porch
Got a place I call my own
There’s a ring on her hand
There’s a leash in mine
Dog in the yard
Past locked behind
I made it out of fire
I’m breathing fine
From a hell I knew
To this heaven I designed
[Verse 2]
Woke up to numbers
Not a sunrise sky
Twenty birthdays
Watching years walk by
Wrote my future on envelopes
Stamped “Return to sender”
But I kept one promise
I would leave there better
She met me at the halfway
Bag full of clothes
Said
“I heard what you did
But I want who you chose”
First night on a mattress
That wasn’t nailed down
I cried in the shower
Let the years run out
[Chorus]
Now I walk on hardwood
Not on cold gray stone
Got a key
Got a porch
Got a place I call my own
There’s a ring on her hand
There’s a leash in mine
Dog in the yard
Past locked behind
I made it out of fire
I’m breathing fine
From a hell I knew
To this heaven I designed
[Bridge]
My dog still jumps when a truck backfires (easy, boy)
I still freeze when I see chain-link wire
But she puts my hand on her beating heart
Says
“You’re here
You’re safe
That’s the hardest part”
[Chorus]
Now I walk on hardwood
Not on cold gray stone
Got a key
Got a porch
Got a place I call my own
There’s a ring on her hand
There’s a leash in mine
Dog in the yard
Past locked behind
I made it out of fire
I’m breathing fine
From a hell I knew
To this heaven I designed