[Verse 1]
There's a tide inside that nobody gets to see
A current running fathoms deep beneath the surface quietly
You read the room before you cross the threshold of the door
You carry what the ocean holds and then you carry more
They see the steady hands, they don't see the undertow
The way your whole world shifts with what you feel but cannot show
You've learned to make a shelter out of everything you've known
And call it independence when you're really just alone

[PreChorus 1]
But that sensitivity is not a weight you wear in vain
It's the reason you can feel the things that others can't explain
Every wall you built was wisdom, every tide was not in vain

[Chorus 1]
Paulie, you are written in the deep
In the language of the moon and what the ancient waters keep
You are steadier than you believe when everything moves fast
You are rooted and you're reaching and your light is built to last
Paulie, let the stars bear witness here
You were never meant to make yourself small enough to disappear
You are tender and you're fearless and you carry both as one
You are everything the cosmos wrote before the world had begun

[Verse 2]
You love like you are building something permanent and true
Like you're laying down foundations in the ones who anchor you
But you've learned to guard the entrance to the deepest parts inside
Keeping half yourself in darkness while you're warming up their night
There's a fire underneath the calm you offer to the room
A bold and brilliant ache in you that rises like the moon
You speak with something burning in the marrow of each word
But you've swallowed down the loudest things you needed to be heard

[PreChorus 2]
That hunger for the real, for what is honest and sincere
It's the truest thing about you and it's been there every year
Every word you held back longer was a river building clear

[Chorus 2]
Paulie, you are written in the deep
In the language of the moon and what the ancient waters keep
You are steadier than you believe when everything moves fast
You are rooted and you're reaching and your light is built to last
Paulie, let the stars bear witness here
You were never meant to make yourself small enough to disappear
You are tender and you're fearless and you carry both as one
You are everything the cosmos wrote before the world had begun

[Verse 3]
You've walked through rooms of ash and still come back to tend the flame
You've carried what would crumble other people all the same
There's something in you ancient, like a knowing without name
That turns the hardest seasons into something worth the pain
You've questioned if your presence leaves a mark that truly stays
If the effort that you pour out finds its way through all the haze
But the ones around you feel it in the marrow of their bones
You are the kind of person that makes everywhere feel like home

[PreChorus 3]
The weight of always giving while you quietly go without
That's not a flaw inside you, it's a river pouring out
Every scar became a compass pointing somewhere through the doubt

[Chorus 3]
Paulie, you are written in the deep
In the language of the moon and what the ancient waters keep
You are steadier than you believe when everything moves fast
You are rooted and you're reaching and your light is built to last
Paulie, let the stars bear witness here
You were never meant to make yourself small enough to disappear
You are tender and you're fearless and you carry both as one
You are everything the cosmos wrote before the world had begun

[Verse 4]
There's a version of yourself you keep behind a careful door
The one who wants without apology and asks for something more
Who doesn't need to earn the right to rest inside a room
Who lets herself be held the way she holds them through the gloom
The world has asked you often just to dim what shines too bright
But that intensity was never something needing to be right
Your depth is not a burden and your feeling is not weak
It's the rarest kind of courage just to be the one you seek

[PreChorus 4]
So lay it down, the proving and the endless need to do
There is nothing left to earn here, love, the sky was made for you
Everything you are becoming was already always true

[Chorus 4]
Paulie,