The King's Own Prison

From the outside, it looks like I'm trapped in my own house. From the inside, it's a choice. I looked hard at leaving, and there's no value in it. Houses have locks too, and when you hold the key, constraint can be safety.

The world outside, it only sees the walls I've built so high
A lonely king in a cold stone room, just waiting for the sky
To fall upon his weary head, a martyr to the game
A prisoner of his own, sad, and self-inflicted shame
They see a man who's lost the war, who's given up the fight
Who's traded all his freedom for a single, flickering light
They see a cage, a tragic end, a man who'll never leave
A fool who doesn't understand the things he could achieve

But a prison's not a prison when you're free to walk away
A cage is not a cage when you have made the choice to stay
It isn't fate, it isn't chance, it isn't destiny
It is the cold and brutal weight of my own sovereignty

So I choose this house, I choose this fight, I choose this heavy crown
I am the one who holds the sky and will not lay it down
This isn't weakness, not defeat, it isn't being trapped
It is the choice a good man makes, the future he has mapped
I stand inside this "prison" not because I cannot leave
But 'cause the man I've sworn to be is the one I still believe
Holds the key
Holds the key

The Dragon in the engine room, he screams to be set free
He wants to burn the world to ash and sail a burning sea
The Engineer just runs the numbers, says the risk is far too high
And the Boy just wants a quiet place where he can go to cry
But I'm the one who rules them all, the one who's on the throne
The one who takes their broken pleas and forges them to stone
A foundation for a life that's built on something more
Than just the selfish, simple, and the easy, open door

'Cause a prison's not a prison when you're free to walk away
A cage is not a cage when you have made the choice to stay
It isn't fate, it isn't chance, it isn't destiny
It is the cold and brutal weight of my own sovereignty

And yeah, the choice is agony, a wound that will not heal
To hold the line between the world I want and what is real
But a building's just a building, and a wall is just a wall
The meaning's in the man who, when he's free to, chooses not to fall
But to stand his ground, and hold the line, and see the battle through
It is the hardest, and the only, thing a king can do.

I hold the key
And I choose to stay
This is my home

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