Build a Wider Doorway

[Intro: spoken, intimate]
They handed me a cardboard moon
And said, “Please wear it facing north.”
I tried it on. It fit the room.
It didn’t fit the shape I was.

[Verse 1]
I kept a drawer of borrowed names,
A paper crown, a rulebook map.
They marked the edges, drew the frame,
Then asked me why I wouldn’t clap.

I learned the proper ways to shrink,
The measured laugh, the lowered eyes.
Then spilled blue ink into the sink
And watched a little ocean rise.

[Pre-Chorus]
Who made the ruler ruler?
Who chose the only door?
I turned the sign around and found
A staircase in the floor.

[Chorus]
MAKE ROOM FOR THE UNLIKELY
LET THE STRANGE THINGS GROW
I’LL TAKE THE SIDEWAYS PASSAGE
WHERE THE WILD IDEAS GO
If your frame can’t hold the person
Standing there in full array,
Don’t trim the edges off your life—
Build a wider doorway.

[Verse 2]
I met a clock that ran in threes,
A teacup full of paper fish,
A quiet kid who planted keys
And grew a garden from a wish.

A woman took the long way home,
A man let every tear arrive.
The odd-shaped pieces found their own
Remarkable ways to fit alive.

[Pre-Chorus]
A label is a little box
With tidy printing on the side.
But people change the weather there;
The shelves are much too small inside.

[Chorus]
MAKE ROOM FOR THE UNLIKELY
LET THE STRANGE THINGS GROW
I’LL TAKE THE SIDEWAYS PASSAGE
WHERE THE WILD IDEAS GO
If your frame can’t hold the person
Standing there in full array,
Don’t trim the edges off your life—
Build a wider doorway.

[Instrumental Break: fractured riff, shifting accents]

[Bridge: half-time, close and vulnerable]
It costs to tell the truth some days.
A room can turn its chairs away.
Still, one small hand can reach the latch;
One honest word can split the patch.

I’m not a puzzle for your shelf.
I’m not a draft you get to mend.
I’m learning how to be myself
Without requesting an amend.

[Build]
One crooked line—
A window.
One wrong turn—
A way through.
All the parts you called too much
Were parts that made me true.

[Final Chorus: expansive, cathartic]
MAKE ROOM FOR THE UNLIKELY
LET THE STRANGE THINGS GROW
I’LL TAKE THE SIDEWAYS PASSAGE
AND I’LL TAKE IT AS I GO
You can keep your little measure,
You can keep your narrow frame;
I will meet the world unedited,
Answering to my chosen name.

[Final Refrain]
Change the plan, change the pattern,
Turn the map and draw it new.
Every strange and splendid angle
Has a place the world can make room for.

[Outro: soft, direct]
If you don’t understand me,
You still met me as I am.