Verse One
I 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.
And I swear I tried to hold the line without unraveling,
without clawing or pleading or screaming myself raw 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 Two
We 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.
And I swear I tried to hold the line without unraveling,
without clawing or pleading or screaming myself raw 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 Three
Now 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.
And I swear I tried to hold the line without unraveling,
without clawing or pleading or screaming myself raw 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
If 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 myself raw 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