I BUILT THIS

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I BUILT THIS lyrics

Artist-supplied lyric sheet, matched by title. The sheet may differ from this released performance. Production notes and alternate promotional cuts are omitted.

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Intro

Yeah, staring at these walls like they got answers

Verse 1

Four-thirty on a Tuesday, cold coffee on the dash Same intersection, same red light, same crack in the glass Two people in the crosswalk, neither sees the same street One smells rain coming, one just feels the concrete heat I been building cathedrals out of things that never happened Stacking memories like mortgages on houses I imagined My therapist said something, hit me strange, I wrote it down Your eyes are just the camera but your brain's the one in town

Pre-chorus

What if everything I'm running from Was built inside my chest this whole time? One more second and the whole thing

Chorus

I BUILT THIS, every wall, every door The lens I'm looking through ain't clear no more I BUILT THIS, the ceiling and the floor Tear it down, rebuild it, what I'm breathing for I built this, yeah, I BUILT THIS

Verse 2

Funny how you notice exits when you're planning your escape Funny how the bread crumbs only show when you're awake Eleven months rehearsing conversations in my truck Playing both the parts, still running out of luck Something shifted when I stopped performing for the jury Picturing the finish line before I left in a hurry My brain's a search engine and I set the algorithm What I feed it, what I starve it, that's the whole religion

Chorus

I BUILT THIS, every wall, every door The lens I'm looking through ain't clear no more I BUILT THIS, the ceiling and the floor Tear it down, rebuild it, what I'm breathing for

Verse 3

Three A.M., apartment dark, running plays behind my eyelids Palms sweating on a pillow like it's center stage, I'm silent Neurons firing for a future that don't technically exist yet Dress rehearsal for a life I haven't built but I insist, yeah Visualization ain't some poster on a counselor's wall It's the dry run 'fore the real one, muscle memory on call Body can't tell what you lived from what you drilled Practiced 'til the distance between real and dream got killed

Verse 4

Clarity don't mean the road gets easy, means I packed right Every detour's just a detail, not a reason for a bad night Stopped asking for the weather, started choosing better clothes When you set the bar inside you, every outside metric slows People wondered how the ship stayed straight through wreckage Captain wasn't lucky, captain just had better leverage Decisions stacked like bricks when you know what the building's for Direction ain't a compass, it's what gets you off the floor

Verse 5

I don't bend the universe, I bend the way I'm standing in it Sixty seconds used to own me, now I own every minute Wrote my name in wet cement before the sidewalk dried Some nights the architecture crumbles, I sit inside the rubble But I built it once from nothing so the second time ain't trouble

Bridge

I ain't shaping galaxies... I know that Just choosing what my mornings taste like Which ghosts get the spare key to my flat Maybe that's enough

Chorus

I BUILT THIS, every wall, every door The lens I'm looking through is MINE now I BUILT THIS, the ceiling and the floor Tear it down, rebuild it, what I'm breathing for I built this, yeah, I BUILT THIS

Outro

Pen down. Architect mode.

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01 / The opening