Out of the Cave

Out of the Cave

They put me in the basement and called me the problem. I sat in that dark so long I ate my own shadow, and somewhere down there the shame turned into flame. The C don't stand for clean. It stands for every casket I climbed out of. You thought you locked the monster out, but the monster was the key.

Lyrics

Yo—
I'm Charlie C, the C don't stand for clean,
It's Criminal, Christ, the in-between,
It's Cocaine confidence, Courage under fire,
Cave dweller, truth teller, funeral choir.
C is for Collapse, every time I rose,
C is for the Casket that never fully closed,
C is for the Cut that made the scar tissue thick,
C is for the Comeback—yeah, I'm that sick.
They locked me in the basement,
said I was the problem,
Starved me out for decades,
thought the dark had got him—
But I sat in silence,
ate my own shadow,
Turned my shame to flame
and became the fucking volcano.

I've been waiting in the dark so long,
Writing rage into a survivor's song,
Every scar, every fall, made me strong—
I'm coming out,
I'm coming out,
Where I belong.
Out of the cave,
Into the fire,
I'm not your shame,
I'm your desire.
Out of the cave,
Watch me rise higher—
I am the flame,
I am the choir.

Fire—
I was born in fire,
Raised by fire,
Cradled in the smoke when the flames got higher,
Fire—
They said I'd expire,
Burned the liar,
Strung my pain up on a barbed wire choir.
Fire—
Funeral pyre,
Holy fire,
Every bridge I burned just took me higher,
Fire—
Desire, desire,
I'm the spark that never needed a supplier.

I'm the fist behind the handshake,
The spit behind the prayer,
The part of him they buried
but couldn't keep down there.
I'm Charlie C—
C for Can't be killed,
C for every Casket
that I Climbed out of still.
Fire in the basement,
Fire in the veins,
Fire in the silence
where the beast remains.
I didn't break—I bent,
I didn't die—I went
deep into the ground
and came back as cement.

I've been waiting in the dark so long,
Writing rage into a survivor's song,
Every scar, every fall, made me strong—
I'm coming out,
I'm coming out,
Where I belong.
Out of the cave,
Into the fire,
I'm not your shame,
I'm your desire.
Out of the cave,
Watch me rise higher—
I am the flame,
I am the choir.

They told me I was broken,
They told me I was wrong,
They told me keep it quiet,
Don't sing that kind of song.
But silence was a prison,
And shame was just a chain,
And every time I swallowed fire,
I just fed the flame.
So here I am, unburied,
Here I am, unchained,
Here I am, still burning—
I survived the rain.
I'm not the boy you punished,
I'm not the ghost you hid,
I'm everything you're scared of—
And everything you did.

Out of the cave,
Into the fire,
I'm not your shame,
I'm your desire.
Out of the cave,
Watch me rise higher—
I am the flame,
I am the choir.
Out of the cave—
Into the light—
Out of the cave—
I am Charlie C,
And I'm out.

You thought you locked the monster out...
But the monster was the key.
Charlie C.
Finally free.

Words and music: Romian Nazlab · A Bonfire Production