TROUBLE’S NOT MY NAME

TROUBLE’S NOT MY NAME

They pinned the name of Trouble,
Upon my winter coat,
Then blamed me for the cruel words,
That stuck inside my throat.

In every room I entered,
The whispering would begin,
They judged me by my battles,
But never where I’d been.

My mistakes walked behind me,
Like children in a line,
While every good thing I had done,
Was buried out of sight.

I carried everybody’s blame,
As though it were my own,
Until my back was bending,
And guilt became my home.

But Trouble’s not my name,
It never matched my soul,
I was only someone broken,
Trying to become whole.

One day I tore their label,
And threw it in the rain,
I watched the muddy letters,
Disappear into the drain.

I gave them back their judgement,
Their gossip and their shame,
Then stood beneath the open sky,
And spoke my proper name.

Now when trouble finds me,
I look it in the eye,
I’ve survived much bigger monsters,
And watched their shadows die.

I have been bruised by living,
But bruises are not sin,
They prove that life has struck me,
And still I did not give in.

So do not call me Trouble,
That woman never came,
Call me the one who walked through fire,
And carried home her name.