The concrete didn't want me, it just held me in a grip

Like a secret kept in silence, like a loose lip slip

I was counting copper pennies just to buy a breath of air, what?

While the ghosts of my ancestors were pulling at my hair, look

They said, "Boy, you are the wreckage of a bridge that we burnt"

But every scar is a lesson that the luxury never learnt

I spent a decade in the basement learning how to breathe the dust

Turning every "no" I heard into a weapon I could trust

I stopped asking for a seat, so I built the whole table

Turning in a fragile fable went to a goddamn label

It ain't about the heartbeat, it's about the rhythm you keep

While the world was playing blind, I was losing my sleep

While the world was playing blind, I was losing my sleep

Didn't just survive the flood, I learned to dance in the rain

Now I'm harvesting the gold from the garden of my pain

Now the view is different, blind me are the first ones to laugh

But the laugh sounds hollow like a coin in a tin

They see the path sounds hollow like a coin in a tin

They see the polished finish, not the war underneath the skin

They see thriving ain't a lottery, it ain't a sudden jump

Thriving ain't a lottery, the sudden jump

It's the slow steady climb from the bottom of the slump

It's the alchemy of agony, the chemistry of grit

When the fuse was getting shorter, I decided I was it

I stopped asking for a seat, so I built the whole table

Turning in a fragile fable went to a goddamn label

It ain't about the heartbeat, it's about the rhythm you keep

While the world was playing blind, I was losing my sleep

While the world was playing blind, I was losing my sleep

Didn't just survive the flood, I learned to dance in the rain

Now I'm harvesting the gold from the garden of my pain

They told me, "Stay in your lane," but the lane was a coffin

They told me, "Wait for your turn," but the clock stopped ticking

I stopped waiting for the light to turn

Green, I just drove through the red

Now I'm breathing oxygen that doesn't taste like smoke

The irony is heavy, yeah, the struggle was the joke

But the punchline is winning when they bet on the fall

I'm the only one standing when they leveled the wall

It's a different kind of hunger when you've tasted the void

Now the fear is a tool and the doubt is destroyed

I don't look back at the ruins just to see what I lost

I look back at the ruins to calculate the cost

Survive, that was the prologue

Thrive, that's the whole book

Keep the change, I took the whole bank