Lullaby for a Little Light
Verse 1You were smaller than a whisper sitting quiet in her dreaming
just a shimmer on the water where her future learned your name
Every hope she never said out loud was folding tiny paper wings for you
all the colors she was saving for your room inside the frame
She would trace out little patterns on her shirt and call them footprints
swear she felt you doing summersaults whenever storms rolled through
She was talking to the ceiling in the dark
both hands over her heartbeat
promising the universe she’d trade her breath just to keep you.
ChorusLittle light, little soul
little heartbeat we never got to hold, You were here
you are real, you are written in the center of our sky
You’re the hush between her heartbeats when she thinks she hears you breathing
You’re the quiet in the doorway when she swears that someone’s near
not asking why, If love alone could have kept you
you’d be laughing in her arms tonight
But the body broke, the illness came
and you slipped beyond the windows and the rain
Little light, little soul
you are gone from here but not from our lives
not from her name.
Verse 2There were doctors speaking softly
drawing circles on their clipboards
talking numbers like they weren’t tearing pages from her chest
She sat still inside the waiting room
breathing in and out like prayer
holding onto every second you were there and calling each one blessed
The medicine was heavy, like a thundercloud inside her
like a storm she never ordered but they poured through all the same
She was begging every hallway, every clock
every doorway, “Take my hands, take my sleep
just don’t take their little flame.”
ChorusLittle light, little soul
little heartbeat we never got to hold, You were here
you are real, you are written in the center of our sky
You’re the hush between her heartbeats when she thinks she hears you breathing
You’re the quiet in the doorway when she swears that someone’s near
not asking why, If love alone could have kept you
you’d be laughing in her arms tonight
But the body broke, the illness came
and you slipped beyond the windows and the rain
Little light, little soul
you are gone from here but not from our lives
not from her name.
Verse 3I need you to know, small one, nobody failed you
nobody let go of your hand in the dark
there was nothing she could do to stay the tide
Her body was a battlefield she never asked to stand in
every bruise, every needle, every sleepless night
she was fighting on your side
She keeps asking all her “what ifs” like beads between her fingers
like she could count them to the end and somehow find a door
But there’s no door back to the minutes where you floated there
all safe and warm and humming
just a wish inside her core.
Verse 4Still I swear I feel you somewhere in the spaces she can’t reach yet
in the lull of late-night traffic
in the morning’s faded gray
Like a hand upon her shoulder when she breaks inside the shower
like a soft and tiny laughter nudging dreams that won’t stay
If the sky is just a ceiling painted over with forever
then you’re chalk in all the corners
drawing halos out of stars
And when she closes both her eyes and finally lets her breathing settle
there you are
curled like a question mark against her scars.
ChorusLittle light, little soul
little heartbeat we never got to hold, You were here
you are real, you are written in the center of our sky
You’re the hush between her heartbeats when she thinks she hears you breathing
You’re the quiet in the doorway when she swears that someone’s near
not asking why, If love alone could have kept you
you’d be laughing in her arms tonight
But the body broke, the illness came
and you slipped beyond the windows and the rain
Little light, little soul
you are gone from here but not from our lives
not from her name.
BridgeIf songs can build a cradle out of air and aching pulses
let this melody be blankets where you rest above the storm
Let each word be one more promise that she did not walk alone through this
that her love was not too little
that her heart was more than warm
If tears can be a language that the other side can answer
then let every drop she’s crying write your name across the dawn
You were wanted, you were treasured
you are part of her forever, and in every gentle moment
little light, you still go on.
OutroSleep soft, small star
on the far side of her heartbeat
We will talk to you in whispers when the world gets rough and loud
She will carry you in silence, in her laughter
in her stories
You’re the child she didn’t get to raise but still
somehow, she’s proud, Little light, little soul
when she looks up through the night and feels less broken for a second
That’s you, love, reaching back through all the dark
That’s you, still here, still hers, A tiny
endless spark.