Lyric

You traced your name

In the fog on the window

Laughed when it smeared

On my sweater sleeve

I keep your letters in a shoebox

Folded corners

Little hearts in red

Every crease remembers how you held me

Every word a place we never said

Love felt simple in that bedroom

Posters peeling

Songs on late-night play

I was sure that growing up meant always

Holding you the same old way

You dyed your hair

On a dare in the kitchen

Phone on the counter

Playing quiet songs

We shared earbuds on the night bus

City passing like a fading show

Every stop a choice we never noticed

Every turn a road we didn’t know

Love moved faster than our planning

New apartments

Dishes in the sink

We were laughing over takeout cartons

Hiding every way we’d start to think

You packed two mugs

And the plant by the window

Said

“It’s just time”

But your voice shook low

We signed papers in a cold room

Plastic clock that ticked through every tear

Every pen stroke shaking like confession

Every breath a year that disappeared

Love sat quiet in the hallway

Boxes stacked where pictures used to stay

I kept searching for our younger faces

In the words we didn’t say

I saw your smile

Through the glass of a café

You waved once

Soft

As the old first days

We shared weather through the small talk

Laughed about the songs we used to hate

Every joke a little fragile mirror

Every pause a promise come too late

Love now lives inside the spaces

Short goodbyes and kind

Careful replies

I walk home and see our distant futures

In the strangers passing by

If I could step

Through all those rooms

Change one word

One quiet afternoon

I’d still choose you

In every time

Just learn to let you go

And call that kindness mine