HOME - Track 5: Case File And a Heartbeat – The House That Trauma Built Lyrics
Track 5: Case File And a Heartbeat – The House That Trauma Built Lyrics
(Verse 1)
The pages start to turn, a date in January
A “Looked After Child,” for all the world to see
The file just says “transition,” a sterile, clean design
But I remember school gates, and a hand that wasn’t mine
It talks of “overcrowding,” the slam of a front door
But it can’t write the feeling of a boy nailed to the floor
A line about an “injunction,” a safe and legal phrase
For a kid who learned to vanish in a silent, childhood haze.
(Pre-Chorus)
And the ink dries on the page,
Another chapter of my age,
And all I hear is the turning…
(Chorus)
They read the case file, but they can’t hear the heartbeat
A rhythm deep inside me that they never got to meet
They see the red flags rising, in paragraphs of pain
But a child is not a number, lost out in the pouring rain
They got the black ink on a white screen
The ghost inside the state machine
Just a case file… and a heartbeat.
(Verse 2)
The file gets thick with phrases through the adolescent years
“Placement instability,” they never logged the tears
“Fails to engage in social life,” the official notes all read
While I was building fantasy worlds inside my own head
Then the crisis came crashing, the “self-harm” and the “risk”
A “section under the Act,” with a cold, clinical flick
The smell of bleach and quiet dread in a room painted white
But they couldn’t chart the silence or the scream trapped in the night.
(Pre-Chorus)
And the ink dries on the page,
Another chapter of my age,
And all I hear is the turning…
(Chorus)
‘Cause they read the case file, but they can’t hear the heartbeat
A rhythm deep inside me that they never got to meet
They see the red flags rising, in paragraphs of pain
But a child is not a number, lost out in the pouring rain
They got the black ink on a white screen
The ghost inside the state machine
Just a case file… and a heartbeat.
(Bridge)
Those pages used to own me, they defined me by the fall
A collection of my worst days, pinned against a wall
But I stole the pen right from their hands, my pain became my ink
It gave me a new language, it taught me how to think
My testimony’s breathing, my story has a sound
It’s for every kid who’s still unheard on any sterile ground.
(Outro)
Thump-thump… goes the heartbeat.
Thump-thump… a promise I can keep.
Thump-thump… a rhythm, low and deep.
Just a heartbeat…
Still a heartbeat.
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