Shades of Blue
Verse OneI remember that kitchen light flickering like a dying promise
the way we left dishes in the sink as though leaving things unfinished was our shared language of exhaustion and yearning
the quiet between us thicker than smoke and just as choking
I kept saying I was fine while my voice cracked like paint peeling from an abandoned church wall where lovers carved initials that never meant forever but pretended anyway under too-bright moons that never asked who hurt first or who would hurt last
You leaned on the counter with your tired eyes looking a hundred miles past me
trying not to shake, trying not to break
trying not to be the one who said what we already knew
Our hearts beating out of rhythm, mine stumbling
yours sprinting
both of us pretending we could outrun the echo of every word we didn’t say
every touch we denied ourselves just to stay strong for the structure that had already collapsed.
ChorusAnd I swear I tried to hold the line without unraveling
without clawing or pleading or screaming your name in the doorway like a ghost that refuses to leave
I kept my hands steady, my voice firm, my breath slow
like a soldier walking off the battlefield pretending the wounds don’t bleed until they do
You thought I was burning up with rage
that I wanted to scorch everything down to embers and ash
show my fury like a wildfire tearing through the last of something precious
No I wasn’t seeing red, …. Just shades of blue
Verse TwoWe wrote our history in apologies and almosts
in long nights where silence felt safer than truth
where wanting you felt like swallowing razor wire and calling it honey
I replayed every doorway I could have stood in
every time I could have reached for your hand but let gravity drag me into myself instead
folding inward like a dying star
Your laughter once lived in the rooms of my chest
bright and loud
now replaced by hollow corridors where footsteps echo like unanswered prayers
We grew distant not in miles but in inches
the small spaces between our fingertips expanding until we felt like strangers wearing familiar skin
trying not to tremble at the memory of how close we once fit.
ChorusAnd I swear I tried to hold the line without unraveling
without clawing or pleading or screaming your name in the doorway like a ghost that refuses to leave
I kept my hands steady, my voice firm, my breath slow
like a soldier walking off the battlefield pretending the wounds don’t bleed until they do
You thought I was burning up with rage
that I wanted to scorch everything down to embers and ash
show my fury like a wildfire tearing through the last of something precious
No I wasn’t seeing red, …. Just shades of blue
Verse ThreeNow I sleep with the lights low and the windows cracked
letting the cold cut me awake to remind myself I still feel something under all this numb grit
Your absence hangs heavy on my ribs like wet denim
dragging me down every time I try to stand tall
forcing me to learn balance in new, unwelcome ways
Some nights I talk to the ceiling like it’s you
like maybe the air remembers your voice and will answer back if I ache correctly
if I shape my longing just right
And I keep trying to forgive myself for not fighting harder
for not holding you tighter
for not knowing how to bleed in a way that didn’t look like surrender.
ChorusAnd I swear I tried to hold the line without unraveling
without clawing or pleading or screaming your name in the doorway like a ghost that refuses to leave
I kept my hands steady, my voice firm, my breath slow
like a soldier walking off the battlefield pretending the wounds don’t bleed until they do
You thought I was burning up with rage
that I wanted to scorch everything down to embers and ash
show my fury like a wildfire tearing through the last of something precious
No I wasn’t seeing red, …. Just shades of blue
BridgeIf I could go back
I wouldn’t rewrite us to be perfect
I’d rewrite us to be honest
I’d let myself break open sooner
spill the truth unfiltered and trembling
I’d tell you that love doesn’t always roar
sometimes it whispers
sometimes it sinks low and shakes quietly in the dark waiting to be held
And maybe we would have stayed
or maybe leaving would have hurt less
But I’d have let you see me bleed.
Chorus (Final)And I swear I tried to hold the line without unraveling
without clawing or pleading or screaming your name in the doorway like a ghost that refuses to leave
I kept my hands steady, my voice firm, my breath slow
like a soldier walking off the battlefield pretending the wounds don’t bleed until they do
You thought I was burning up with rage
that I wanted to scorch everything down to embers and ash
show my fury like a wildfire tearing through the last of something precious
No I wasn’t seeing red, …. Just shades of blue