[Intro]
A thousand flames
No hand to light them
A thousand names
No tongue to write them

[Verse 1]
The nave was wide as winter sleep
With dust along the pews
Each candle bent against no wind
In little coats of blue
The saints had lost their painted eyes
The floor was split with rain
And every flame leaned close to me
As if it knew my name

[Verse 2]
I passed the benches one by one
Where no one knelt for years
The wax ran down the iron stands
Like pale and patient tears
A child’s shoe near the altar rail
A ring beneath the grime
A rosary with broken beads
Still counting out the time

[Pre-Chorus]
I thought my sorrow was alone
A private, locked disease
But every candle held a throat
And breathed among the seats

[Chorus]
Candles for the nameless
Burning through the rain
Little golden witnesses
To love without a grave
Candles for the nameless
Teach my hands to see
Every flame that outlives death
Is asking truth of me

[Verse 3]
I set your photograph beside
A candle with no saint
The corner curled, the paper sighed
Your smile turned thin and faint
I wanted heaven to answer first
With thunder, wings, or light
But only wax and silence spoke
In orange against the night

[Pre-Chorus]
A woman sang behind the stone
Too soft to understand
Her vowels moved like chapel smoke
And touched my shaking hand

[Chorus]
Candles for the nameless
Burning through the rain
Little golden witnesses
To love without a grave
Candles for the nameless
Teach my hands to see
Every flame that outlives death
Is asking truth of me

[Choir Break]
We are the left unsaid
We are the unlaid dead
We are the rooms you fled
Name us, name us

[Bridge]
I tried to pray for you alone
But prayer became a hall
Where all the lost stood close enough
To hear my silence fall
And then I knew the cathedral kept
Not ghosts for fear or blame
But every love denied a word
And every nameless flame

[Build-up]
Let the wax run down
Let the cold bells wake
Let the marble mouths
Learn the sound I make

[Final Chorus]
Candles for the nameless
Burning through the rain
Little golden witnesses
To love without a grave
Candles for the nameless
Hold what I could not keep
Every flame that outlives death
Is watching while I weep
Candles for the nameless
Do not set me free
Light the path into the dark
That waits inside of me

[Outro]
A thousand flames
No hand to light them
A thousand names
My voice beside them