More Than the Mark

How long do I owe the dark
Not one more night
Let them see me

Makeup wipes across the counter
A cracked mirror on the wall
A microphone in my fingers
Feeling heavier than it all

They said we can dim the lights
Keep the left side in the shade
But I am tired of surviving
Like I owe the dark my name

Ten years of longer sleeves
Ten years of turning right
So the camera only ever caught
The side I kept in light

The crowd outside is breathing
The curtain's in my hand
And my old fear keeps whispering
They will never understand

But hiding never healed me
And shame never kept me safe
So I step into the brightness
With the truth across my face

More than the mark
Let them see
Let them see me
I am more than the mark
In the glass

I don't owe the dark
One more night
More than the mark
Still I shine

Let them see me
See me
Let them see me
See me
Still I shine

First light hit my skin
And the whole room changed
The quiet fell so hard
I almost turned away

Then one clap in the back
Cut through like a drum
Not pity
Not surprise

Just somebody saying
Go on

I sang the first line shaking
The second one came clean
By the third
The scar was up there

But it wasn't all of me

Somebody's phone light lifted
Then a hundred little suns
Like the dark I'd been avoiding
Came to hear me all along

I looked into the front row
Saw a young girl touch her cheek
And I knew the song was bigger
Than the fear inside of me

Somewhere in the second chorus
The spotlight lost its teeth
It wasn't an interrogation
It was morning on my cheek

More than the mark
Let them see
Let them see me
I am more than the mark
In the glass

I don't owe the dark
One more night
More than the mark
Still I shine

Little girl inside me
You don't have to hide
You don't owe the shadows
Another place to live inside

You are not the silence
You are not the wound
You're every note that rises
When they finally make you room

I used to count the exits
Now I count the eyes that stay
My dress still shakes a little
But I do not turn away

The scar that tried to bench me
Wrote the part I sing today

If you're hiding something
Step out
If you're scarred and shining
Step out

You don't owe the dark a thing
Not a thing
Not tonight
Not tonight

More than the mark
Let them see
Let them see me
I am more than the mark
In the glass

I don't owe the dark
One more night
More than the mark
The light is mine
Mine

Let them see me
See me
Let them see me
See me

Still I shine
And the light is mine

Encore in the doorway
Somebody says my name
Not the girl who hid her face
From every camera frame

More than the mark
The light is mine