After I’m Gone

Lyrics

I have walked through years of sorrow
With a smile I learned to wear
Held my dreams like fragile glass
In the cold and empty air

There were nights I almost vanished
There were days I could not stand
But I kept a little music
Like a candle in my hand

And if my name begins to fade
If no one knows the roads I crossed
Let every note I gave away
Speak for everything I lost

After I’m gone
Let the melody remain
Like a mark upon the darkness
Like a scar beneath the rain

After I’m gone
Let it carry what I was
All the love I could not speak
All the dreams I almost lost

I have seen the morning breaking
Over places I outgrew
Left my footprints in the silence
Where no one ever knew

There were words I never answered
There were hands I could not hold
But the song inside my spirit
Kept me standing in the cold

And if the night should take my shadow
If the years erase my face
Let the sound I leave behind me
Find a home in empty space

After I’m gone
Let the melody remain
Like a mark upon the darkness
Like a scar beneath the rain

After I’m gone
Let it carry what I was
All the love I could not speak
All the dreams I almost lost

Do not cry for all my silence
Do not search for me in stone
I was more than all my endings
More than all I left unknown

I have fallen, I have risen
I have paid for every mile
But if one heart hears this music
Then I lived a little while

Raise it higher, let it wander
Past the sorrow, past the night
Let it break the walls around you
Let it pull you toward the light

If my voice is only memory
If my name is nearly gone
Let the final chord remind you
I was here, and I held on

After I’m gone
Let the melody remain
Like a mark upon the darkness
Like a scar beneath the rain

After I’m gone
Let it rise above the pain
Let it speak when words are broken
Let it live when I am changed

After I’m gone
Let the whole sky know my name
Not for glory, not for mercy
But for every song I gave

After I’m gone
Let the melody remain
If I disappear in silence
I will still be in the rain

And when the last note leaves the room
Do not let the ending stay
Carry me inside the music
And let the darkness fall away