Lyrics

There's a yard I never left, though they tore the old school down
Blacktop and a chain-link fence on the cold side of town
And a boy still standing in it with his back against the wall
Watching all the others playing, being no one, being small

He was five when he first learned it, how a name becomes a joke
How a circle can be closed to you with words nobody spoke
So he got good at being invisible, got good at looking down
Got so good at disappearing that no one saw him drown

They tore the school to rubble, but the fence is in me still
And every room I ever enter has that corner it can fill

I'm going back for the boy in the yard
Past the years, past the fence, past the bell
He's been guarding all the wonder
That he never got to tell
I will kneel down on the blacktop
I will say: I know - I came
You were never what they made you
And you never earned the blame
Take my hand, the gate is open
It was open all along
Come and show me all your countries
Come and teach me all your songs

He knows every constellation he invented walking home
He has maps of seven kingdoms drawn in pencil, drawn alone
He can name the dinosaurs in order, tell you how a planet spins
All that light with no one looking - all that world he carried in

You were not too strange, too quiet - you were never broken, kid
A seed is not a failure for the winter that it's in
And nobody gets the last word on a life they never knew
Look at us this morning, kid: the gate, the sun, the blue

I'm going home with the boy from the yard
Hand in hand through the gate, through the years
He was never my shame or my secret
He's the bravest thing in here
All the wonder that he guarded
Through the winters, through the fear
Was never lost, never wasted
It was waiting - and we're here

Hey, little one
It's me - I made it
Take my hand
We can go anywhere from here