Flame in a Paper House (For Brooklynn)
Title: Flame in a Paper House
Artist: Loui Crow
Streaming: All platforms
TikTok: @louicrow
🖤 ABOUT THE SONG — Flame in a Paper House
This is a grief vow.
This is what I built when I couldn’t go back.
Brooklynn was a kid across the street in New Mexico. Eleven, maybe. Her siblings wild and alive, her light too loud for the walls she was raised in. I saw her. Every day. And every day, I didn’t say enough. I didn’t get out. I didn’t pull over.
This song is what came after.
It’s what I wish I could’ve done then—bathed her in silence that heals, fed her real warmth, stayed when the storm hit. It’s a spell for every girl who had to twist herself small just to stay safe.
It’s not rescue. It’s memory lit on fire.
Brooklynn lives in my breath now. This is her song.
🔥 CROW BODY-BREAKDOWN — What Survivor Grief Really Is
It’s the guilt of watching pain and walking past it.
It’s the ache of seeing the light in someone’s eyes and still closing the door.
It’s what we carry when we loved someone we couldn’t stay for.
It turns into tension. Into memory flares. Into the kind of dreams that echo in daylight.
But grief like that doesn’t ask for shame. It asks for ritual.
It asks you to build what you couldn’t give.
To speak what you swallowed.
To sing what still lives.
🗣️ Crow Affirmation:
"I turned the silence into song. I turned the ache into altar."
🖤 CROW TRUTH
She wasn’t a victim—she was the signal.
I saw the flame before the burn.
I guard her name like a house that holds.
This vow breathes. This grief glows.
Brooklynn lives in the torch I carry.
🔋 LYRICS — Flame in a Paper House
VERSE 1
I saw her—a flame in a paper house,
Not begging, not broken, just burning too loud.
New Mexico dust on her lashes and lips,
But she smiled like a maybe, like love on her hips.
She didn’t flinch—
but her sorrow sat tall,
like it had a spine and a job and a reason to crawl.
Wore her trauma like threadbare overalls—
each rip a receipt for the times she took the fall.
And I wanted to steal her.
Pull her out of that dust-blown grief town.
Wash the blood from her knees
with rosewater and sound.
Run the bath till her silence sighed.
Hold her in steam ‘til the old ghosts cried.
I wanted to braid her hair—
each strand like a line I wished I’d declared.
In a kitchen where no one screamed.
Feed her something with warmth,
not just calories dressed up as dreams.
Give her silence that heals, not silence that bleeds.
A room where the air redeems.
Like safety.
Like breath.
Like, “You don’t have to break just to earn rest.”
I wanted to wrap my whole self around her frame,
like a house that don’t fold when it’s calling her name.
Like a roof that stays when the storm gets loud.
But the wheels kept turning.
And I didn’t shout.
I didn’t swerve.
I didn’t brake.
I didn’t get out.
And something in me cracked on that route.
I watched you cry in the rearview mirror
And prayed my silence wouldn’t disappear her.
HOOK 1 (spoken-sung)
Brooklynn—I'm back and I’m bringing the breath,
a vow in my chest that doesn't fear death.
They tried to erase you, caged you in sin—
but I built you in beats, now you rise from within.
I didn’t pull over, but I live with the cost.
I couldn’t save you… so I turned to the loss
I became what you needed—raw, lit, and unshook.
You’re not gone, Brooklynn. You live in my hook.
VERSE 2
There’s grief in my ribs where your name took a seat,
I carry you quiet, but it pounds in the beat.
A vow in my bones that don’t bend to the breeze,
a scream stitched in ink where the silence would tease.
“You don’t have to smile when it cuts like a curse.
You don’t have to bleed just to prove what you're worth.”
You weren’t there to hear it—so I screamed it in lines,
turned my chest to a chapel, kept your name in the rhymes.
You were sacred.
Still are. Still shine.
I choose you in rhythm, in scar, in the spine.
In every soft girl who was taught to lie low.
They dimmed your light—but you still throw glow.
You weren’t the damage. You weren’t the joke.
You were the signal. You burned through the smoke.
HOOK 2 (rap-spoken)
Brooklynn—burnt in a world that never looked in.
But I saw the flame, even when you shook in it.
Couldn’t pull over, so I took it on the chin—
Now I’m walking like a torch with your ghost tucked in.
You weren’t just a girl. You were where I began.
So I’m coming back loud. For you, Brooklynn.
BRIDGE (whisper chant with echo FX)
Not forgotten.
Not erased.
Brooklynn, your name is a holy place.
I keep the door cracked.
I light the flame.
And I say it loud so you’ll find your way.
And I say it LOUD so you’ll find your way.
HOOK 3 (melodic rap / trap vibe)
Brooklynn—I see you in every room I enter.
You loved through the wreckage, dead-center.
They dimmed your glow, tried to box you in—
But I caught your fire and I locked it in.
This vow don’t flicker—it’s lit in my skin.
So I’m coming back shining. For you, Brooklynn.
FINAL HOOK (return to Hook 1, now harmonized)
If I couldn’t pull you free…
Then I’ll raise what they tried to bury.
You were never just a girl—
You were the reason I carry.
A flame in a paper house—
And I saw you before the burn.
You weren’t lost. You were sacred.
And for you I return.
FINAL WHISPERED CLOSE
“I saw the light in you trying to stay on,
even when the whole room screamed ‘go dark.’”
You were the flame in a paper house—
and I guard it now with blood in my mouth.
Brooklynn. I’m coming back for you.
Brooklynn.