Unbraced - Lyrics

Title: Unbraced
Artist: Loui Crow
Streaming: All platforms
📱 TikTok/FB/YouTube/IG: @louicrow

🖤 ABOUT THE SONG — UNBRACED

This song was born from a floor. From a breath. From a body that finally stopped gripping. It came out of a yoga session where, for the first time in years, I felt my armor come undone. My toddler was safe downstairs with his uncle—the first adult outside me and my husband that he trusts—and I suddenly realized I didn’t have to be on guard. My body heard that message before my mind did.

I cried out of relief. Gratitude poured like water through me. This was the first time since my son was born that I felt myself truly relax. But it wasn’t just motherhood. The truth is, I’ve always been braced—jaw clenching, shoulders armored, heart pounding like it’s late for something. Bracing is my setpoint. Even in silence, my body runs.

That night I didn’t run. Each pose I held for 5 minutes. I wobbled, then I imagined what I would be as that pose. I became a frog, low and still. I became a telephone pole, buzzing with signal but grounded to earth. I became a bowstring, taut but trembling for release. I became a whirlpool, blood spiraling, energy colliding, transforming instead of crashing. The poses weren’t just shapes—they were body confessions. Each one revealed where the brace lived in me, and each one showed me what it meant to let go.

This song is that letting go set to rhythm. It’s the exhale after years of clenching. It’s not polished gratitude; it’s messy gratitude. The kind that shows up when your ribs finally drop and you realize how long you’ve been holding your breath.

🔥 What Bracing Really Is

Bracing is survival carved into muscle. It’s a nervous system screaming danger when there’s no danger left in the room. Bracing is the body’s rat race: jaw locked, shoulders high, pulse sprinting against nothing. The mind that never stops. It feels like control, but it’s really fear in disguise.

For years, every time I noticed my breath, I tried to control it. 4-4-6-4 counts, tight hands on the wheel of my lungs. It looked like mindfulness, but underneath it was still bracing—forcing rhythm so nothing slipped loose. That night I finally stopped steering. I witnessed my breath instead of managing it, and the body showed me what it can do on its own.

And for the first time, I felt the truth in my chest: the high resting heart rate I’ve always been told about at doctor visits wasn’t just a number. I could feel it hammering, racing in my ribs even while I lay still. That awareness was dizzying, like the Gravitron ride, but also freeing—because once I felt it, I could stop running from it.

Unbracing is radical trust. It’s not laziness. It’s not weakness. It’s letting the diaphragm do what it’s been doing since the womb. It’s telling the ghosts they don’t get to hold the steering wheel anymore. It’s surrender that heals what force cannot.

🗣️ Crow Affirmation:
“The body breathes itself. I stop the control. The brace unties.”

🖤 CROW TRUTH

Braced was my setpoint.
Even safe, I never stopped running.
Armor felt holy, but it was only fear.
Surrender is the only thing that worked.
Unbraced is the prayer.

UNBRACED – LYRICS

[Intro]
Anxiety etches the brace in my skin
Thought pulls the trigger, the bracing begins.
Worry the master, body the law.
Mind says danger, body builds a wall.

[Verse 1]
Ride the Gravitron thoughts, circulation spins in place,
Pinned against the railing of my ribs, I brace.
Body bows backward, the whip is within,
Each posture reveals where the brace digs in.
Heart rate hammer, each second it drums,
Syrup-thick gravity, my body weighs tons.
Every thought is a trigger, each worry a gun,
Shoulder blades ratchet, the bracing’s begun.

[Verse 2]
Knee to the dirt, I’m a pole in the ground,
Metal biting soil where the signal is found.
Buzz through my spine, current climbs like a choir,
I wobble, then stabilize—I am the wire.
Pain at the contact, code gets cracked,
Signal in my marrow, spine reacts.
Resisting the current turns signal to scream,
Embody the current—steady the stream.

[Pre-Chorus]
My nervous system stuck in red.
No damage, just ghosts instead.
Counting is chains, control in disguise.
Breath finds rhythm when I close my eyes.
Brace is survival when I think danger’s near,
Armor of clench, wall of fear.
Quit the grip, let the system adjust,
Tell myself it’s not lazy, it’s radical trust.

[Chorus]
Unbraced body breathes itself, sets me free,
Unbraced walls fall quiet, no war in me.
Un-braced, I stop scanning the room,
Un-braced, breath grows, I make space for bloom.

[Verse 3]
Frog in the shadows, belly near stone.
Stillness is home, leap is postponed.
Forehead to floorboard, silence I log,
Sink lower by the minute, I am the frog.
Eyes half-lidded, I rest and I wait,
Back bowed low where the floor takes weight.
Breath hums steady, no need to plot,
Healing waits patient where force cannot.

[Verse 4]
Legs tucked under, back on the floor lean in,
I am the prow, I split the air’s skin.
Discipline’s a brace in disguise,
Bowstring quivers, tension implies.
Braced is the bowstring, braced for the fall,
I only know tension, I only know draw.
But air can hold me when I release,
Arrow waits silent, trembling for peace.

[Chorus]
Unbraced body breathes itself, sets me free,
Unbraced walls fall quiet, no war in me.
Un-braced, I stop scanning the room,
Un-braced, breath grows, I make space for bloom.

[Verse 5]
Blood climbs backward, legs flood the wall,
Fluids collide in my shins, whirlpool calls.
Devil’s Churn in the marrow, currents slam then spin,
Collision becomes spiral as circulation begins.
Force is the weight that drags me down.
Surrender’s the tide that lets me drown.
I brace against nothing, I brace all around,
I brace like a shoreline that never retreats.
I’m tide, I’m vessel, I’m whirlpool steep.

[Bridge]
Steam paints the mirror, my face blurs thin,
Tears trace rivers where the brace has been.
For a moment I’m steady, the silence is spine,
I’m weight in the water, no war in my mind.

[Extended Chorus]
I brace my breath like a clenched fist prayer,
Un-braced, lungs sing sweeter when I’m not there.
Un-braced, surrender heals what force ruins,
For a moment I am weight, not the one who runs.
Unbraced body breathes itself, set free,
Unbraced walls fall quiet, no war in me.
Un-braced, I stop scanning the room,
Un-braced, breath grows, I make space for bloom.

[Outro]
Reflex walls I never unbuilt,
Every thought etches deeper, carved in guilt.
It’s not new danger—it’s old debris,
A memory loop still bracing me.
What looked like focus was fear in disguise,
I stop the control, and the brace unties.

Unbrace me.