Welcome back to The House That Trauma Built. If you’ve been following this journey through my deconstructed lyrics, you’ll know we’ve already stepped through some heavy rooms. We explored the internal blame in The Thing, the crushing weight of external rejection in Spoilt, and the systemic attempts to numb that pain in A Medicated Mess.
Today, we move into Track 4: “A Clouded Sky.” While the previous tracks focused on the trauma inflicted upon me, this song is about the secrets I had to keep within me. It’s a story of identity, the fear of being truly seen, and the long, difficult road to finally stepping out from the shadows.
Table Of Contents
The Weight of a Whisper
The song opens with a memory from when I was ten years old. At that age, you are still trying to figure out how the world works, yet I was already carrying a truth that felt too heavy for my shoulders.
“Ten years old, a whisper unheard / A secret truth in a single word / I said, ‘I’m gay,’ but the doubt was stirred / Dismissed as a phase, a meaning blurred.”
When you are a “ooked after child, your voice already feels small. When you finally find the courage to speak a fundamental truth about yourself and it’s dismissed as a “phase,” it teaches you something dangerous: that your reality isn’t valid. The “meaning blurred” because if the adults around me didn’t believe it, I started to think I couldn’t trust my own heart.
Living the Practiced Lie
The chorus captures the atmospheric pressure of living in the closet while already navigating the instability of the care system.
“And I hid my truth beneath a clouded sky / Believed the doubt behind a practiced lie / Just a secret untold, in the shadows so cold / Too afraid to let the real me show, too young to be that bold.”
The “clouded sky” is a recurring motif in my work. In Spoilt it represented the shadow of my father’s rejection. Here, the clouds are the internal shame and the “practiced lie” I had to tell every day just to fit in. When you are “too young to be that bold,” you choose safety over authenticity. In the shadows, it’s cold, but at least you feel hidden from further judgment.
The Digital Retreat
As I grew older, the battle moved from my head to my fingertips. Verse 2 explores the era of “Online whispers.”
“Online whispers in a family chat / My fingers typed where my courage sat / But fear took hold, and I fell back flat / Twice more the message, I took it all back.”
This is a very specific kind of modern trauma—the “type and delete” cycle. My courage lived in my fingers, but the fear lived in my chest. Three times I tried to bridge the gap between my secret and my family, and three times the weight of the “clouded sky” forced me to retract. It shows the paralyzing nature of hypervigilance: always measuring the cost of being yourself.
The Breaking Point: Fifteen and the Power of Peer Support
The Bridge marks a major shift in the album’s energy. If you recall A Medicated Mess fifteen was a dark year—the year of hospitals and “sterile embraces.” But “A Clouded Sky” shows the parallel light that was starting to break through. but the reality is it was only months after coming out as gay that i became Sectioned.
“But fifteen came, and with friends by my side / There was finally nowhere left to hide / A message was crafted, the words set free / I’m gay and I’m proud, for the whole world to see.”
This is where the theme of resilience truly starts to blossom. It wasn’t a professional or a system that gave me the strength to come out; it was the “friends by my side.” This highlights why I do the work I do today at Looked After Child Limited—because community and authentic connection are often the only things that can pull us out of the shadows.
The Bittersweet Rain of Support
The resolution of the song is one of my favorite lyrical moments, but it carries a sharp edge of regret.
“And the family embraced with a gentle rain / And my friends stood beside me, erasing the pain / If only that support had come years before / Maybe I wouldn’t have hidden behind a locked door.”
The “gentle rain” is the relief of acceptance, but the line “If only that support had come years before” is a challenge to the system. How much trauma could be avoided if children were supported in their identities from the start? I spent years “behind a locked door” because I was waiting for a safety that was already there, but I was too afraid to test the handle.
From Clouds to Rainbows: The Anthem of Release
The final chorus and outro transform from a hesitant melody into an “anthem of release.”
“I was done with the truth ‘neath a clouded sky! / Done with the doubt and the practiced lie! / That secret untold, left out in the cold! / It was time to let the real me show, it was time to be bold!”
This is the pivot point for the entire album. It’s the moment I stopped being a “ghost in my own body” (as mentioned in A Medicated Mess) and started becoming the architect of my own life.
“The world now knows… the rainbow unfurls… / My spirit can soar… / A life lived true… / Not hiding anymore. / Forevermore.”
“A Clouded Sky” is about the transition from surviving to living. It acknowledges that while we might be born into a house built by trauma, we don’t have to live in its darkest rooms forever.
Stay tuned for our next deconstruction, where we look at the official side of things in Track 5: “A Case File and a Heartbeat.”
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