Chapter 08 · 4 min 58 sec
permission
Recognition — looking back and seeing the love that was always present, just unnamed.
Lyrics· 780 words
[Intro] No more asking No more waiting No more permission Go
[Verse 1] I spent too many years with my hand half-raised Like my whole damn life needed somebody’s praise Like the door would open if I behaved Like the cage was holy if the lock looked safe
Nah
I don’t ask the dark if I’m allowed to shine I don’t ask the clock if it can give me time I don’t ask the fear if the road is mine I don’t ask a dead dream for a warning sign
Move fast Breathe sharp Black sky Steel heart
Old scars New start No map Go hard
I was waiting for a yes from a world that profits When your mouth stays shut and your soul stays hostage But the blood got loud and the truth turned toxic Now I break that chain like a bad old promise
[Pre-Chorus] I don’t need the nod I don’t need the sign I don’t need the gate I don’t need the line
I don’t need the room I don’t need the crown I don’t ask permission I burn walls down
[Chorus] No more permission No more delay No more kneeling No more “someday”
No more silence No more fear No more waiting I move from here
I don’t ask I act I don’t bend I snap
No more permission I take my life back
[Verse 2] Fast
Tick-tick, time with a knife in the ribs Click-click, mind trying to hide what it is Sick-sick lies from the mouth of regret Quick-quick, run before the blood turns dead
I got a brain like a battleground, heart like a black box Hands full of bad thoughts, feet on a cracked clock Past in a padlock, rage in a glass shop One little spark and the whole thing blast off
I don’t wait for the perfect condition I don’t wait for applause or permission I don’t wait for a cleaner edition I don’t negotiate with inhibition
I was not born to be managed by doubt I was not made for a half-life route I was not built with a mute in my mouth I was not raised just to stay underground
Now I’m up with a cut in the voice Now I run with the blood and the noise Now I make every impossible choice Now I turn all the pain into poise
This is not luck, this is teeth in the wire This is not hope, this is sweat under fire This is not faith in a pretty white choir This is me dragging my name from the mire
[Pre-Chorus] I don’t need the nod I don’t need the sign I don’t need the gate I don’t need the line
I don’t need the room I don’t need the crown I don’t ask permission I burn walls down
[Chorus] No more permission No more delay No more kneeling No more “someday”
No more silence No more fear No more waiting I move from here
I don’t ask I act I don’t bend I snap
No more permission I take my life back
[Breakdown] Quiet
Who told you You needed approval?
Who told you You needed a witness?
Who told you Your life was a courtroom?
Who told you Your fire was business?
No
[Verse 3] Ultra fast
I got a locked-jaw, raw-thought, war-torn rhythm With a black-flame, fast-lane, no-shame vision I got a cold-eyed, soul-wide, low-light mission I got a heartbeat kicking like a prison ignition
No pass, no badge, no bless, no key No throne, no loan, no rope for me No priest, no beast, no peace, no plea No more living like I need them to agree
I approve myself I choose myself I move myself I refuse myself
To die in a room Where the air stands still With a dream in a drawer And a half-dead will
I am not your maybe I am not your wait I am not your almost I am not too late
I am not the version That you kept controlled I am not the silence That you bought and sold
So tell every doubt in the back of my head That the old little government there is dead Tell every fear that was charging me rent That the lease is burned and the king has left
[Final Chorus] No more permission No more delay No more kneeling No more “someday”
No more silence No more fear No more waiting I move from here
I don’t ask I act I don’t bend I snap
No more permission I take my life back
[Outro] No more permission No more permission No more permission
I take my life back
Short Story
*Permission was never theirs to grant.*
She wrote the letter five times.
Five different nights, five different versions. The first was angry. The second was explanatory. The third was so carefully reasonable it barely said anything. The fourth was the longest — she'd finally told the whole story, all of it, the parts she'd been editing out for twenty years.
The fifth was a single paragraph.
She read the fifth one back and understood that none of them would ever be sent.
Not because the things in them weren't true. They were all true, in their different registers. Not because the recipient didn't deserve to know — she'd spent a long time deciding whether they did and had landed, finally, on: it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter because what she'd been waiting for — the acknowledgment, the apology, the permission to move forward that she'd been expecting to arrive from outside — was not going to come in the mail.
The fifth letter said: *I am not waiting anymore.*
Five sentences after that, it ended.
She read it back once more, then she tore it slowly into pieces over the bin.
She felt something go out of her body — something she hadn't known was in there, something she'd been holding at a cost she hadn't fully registered.
She made tea. She went to bed. She slept better than she had in months.
In the morning she got up and started the thing she'd been waiting to start.
---
*You were the one with the authority all along.*
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