There You Are

Also released as: Remix

Intro

Verse 1

There's a boy in all the photographs
In a collar buttoned tight
A crooked grin for every camera
Standing still in the flash of light
But she'd sit at her mother's mirror
Try a new name on for size
Then wipe it off before the door clicked
And put the boy back in her eyes

Pre-Chorus

You can fold a life up smaller
You can learn to wait and wait
But the walls were never strong enough
She'd been walking through them anyway

Chorus

There once was a boy who was always a girl
She just needed the sky to let her wings unfurl
'Cause you can't cage a gender
Any more than you can cage a ghost
She'll slip between the bars you built
And go where she needs to go

Verse 2

They said square your shoulders, son
So she learned to play the part
Folded up her wings beneath a heavy coat
Buttoned all the way to the heart
And she drifted down the hallways
Like a stranger in her skin
Half a ghost inside her own life
Just waiting to begin

Pre-Chorus

And the world will tell you who to be
It'll bolt and chain the gate
But the gate was never strong enough
She'd been walking through it anyway

Chorus

Bridge

Then one night she said it out loud
Just her name and nothing more
And the whole house held its breath
Like the wind had found the door
Some folks pulled the curtains closed
And never came back around
But someone took her by the hand
And said, "There you are."

Verse 3

Now there's a girl in all the photographs
With that same old crooked grin
Standing easy in the flash of light
Like she's always been

Final Chorus

There once was a girl, she was always a girl
And look at her now, watch those wings unfurl
'Cause you can't cage a gender
Any more than you can cage a ghost
But she's not haunting anymore
She's here, she's real, she's home

Outro

There once was a girl
Who walked right through the walls
There you are
There you are

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