“LIGHTHOUSE SKIN” by Fanny Alexandra ⸻ [Verse 1] I spent years speaking to myself like a courtroom on fire, cross-examining every flaw until my body called me a liar. Every mirror became surveillance, every silence, a loaded gun. I wore exhaustion like religion, prayed to being “less than.” But my heart kept setting the table for a girl who never came home. Kept leaving the porch light on inside these shaking bones. And isn’t that a kind of love? To stay when staying hurts the most. ⸻ [Pre-Chorus] Maybe healing isn’t sudden. Maybe it’s embarrassingly small. Like finally speaking to yourself without sharpening your voice at all. ⸻ [Chorus] So hold me gently— I’ve been fighting myself for years. Every mirror felt like war, every compliment disappeared. But my heartbeat said, “Stay. Stay. Stay.” Like a lighthouse in the rain. And maybe I deserve a little mercy too. Maybe the light I kept searching for was just trying to get through. Oh— what a beautiful thing to survive your own mind and still believe there’s something worth saving inside. My body whispered, “Breathe.” And for once… I did. ⸻ [Verse 2] There’s a scar on the insides of my wrist that faded softer over years. Funny how the body knows what the mind refuses to hear. That wounds don’t close from punishment. That shame doesn’t make you wise. That some nights survival looks like washing your face and staying alive. I used to think tenderness had to be earned through suffering. Like love was a locked cathedral and pain was the only key. But the moon never asks permission to touch the black sea with light. Maybe grace is just the refusal to leave yourself behind. ⸻ [Pre-Chorus] Maybe hope isn’t loud. Maybe it barely whispers at all. A tiny warm hand in the dark saying, “I know. I know. But don’t let go.” ⸻ [Chorus] So hold me gently— I’ve been fighting myself for years. Every mirror felt like war, every compliment disappeared. But my heartbeat said, “Stay. Stay. Stay.” Like a lighthouse in the rain. And maybe I deserve a little mercy too. Maybe the light I kept searching for was just trying to get through. Oh— what a beautiful thing to survive your own mind and still believe there’s something worth saving inside. My body whispered, “Breathe.” And for once… I did. ⸻ [Bridge] To the lungs that kept breathing during panic attacks in supermarket lines. To the hands that shook but still reached for tomorrow anyway. To the little kid in me who learned to survive by becoming smaller— you don’t have to disappear anymore. There is a version of love that does not demand your destruction. There is a version of you beneath all the noise, waiting patiently like sunlight under frozen water. And God… what if you deserve that softness too? ⸻ [Final Chorus] So here we are— all smoke and skin, every broken thing stitched gently in. And my heartbeat sings, “Please. Don’t leave me again.” And maybe that’s enough for a lifetime. To stop treating your soul like a crime. To let the light come in uneven, through every cracked place inside. Oh— what a beautiful thing, to be alive at the exact same time as your own becoming. My body said, “Live.” My soul said, “You already are.” And somewhere deep inside me, for the first time in years, something unclenched and bloomed. ⸻ [Outro] I may not love myself yet. But tonight I left the door unlocked for the possibility.
