[Cold Open | solo female spoken-sung | felt piano only | steady four-beat cadence] I didn’t leave. I was taken. There’s a difference You should know. If I could have chosen One more moment, I would never Have let you go. [Verse 1 | rhythmic storytelling | restrained pulse enters] You kept my voice in your old phone, Played it back when the room went still. Every breath and every pause, Like the ending might change its mind. You read our messages late at night, From the first one down to the last. I kept hoping you’d choose someone. You kept choosing the life we had. [Pre-Chorus | pulse continues | melody begins to rise] I asked you to choose the living. You kept choosing What was gone. [Chorus | melodic female vocal | same groove | wider chords] Across the distance, I was with you all along— In every door that opened, In the nerve to carry on. I could not give you tomorrow, Could not give you back the past. So I loved you how I could Across the distance. [Verse 2 | spoken-sung cadence | bass and dry beat continue] You made a shelter out of work, Then built it higher year by year. They learned your name in every room, But no one knew what brought you there. Some came close; you let them try, But every spark went cold too fast. They knew the man the world admired. I knew the boy who held my hand. [Verse 3 | same rhythmic flow | faint reverse ambience] I bent the distance once or twice In ways I still cannot explain. In silver doors, you caught my face, Then turned and found yourself again. At rush hour, someone wore my eyes. You followed her; she slipped from sight. Before the room that made your name, I found your ear that final time. [Beat drops | solo female whisper] Breathe. Go in. You know this. [Pulse returns] You raised your head. You walked inside. You spoke as if I stood beside you. They shook your hand. The door swung wide. And everything began. [Chorus | melodic female vocal | deeper pulse] Across the distance, I was with you all along— In every door that opened, In the nerve to carry on. I could not give you tomorrow, Could not give you back the past. So I loved you how I could Across the distance. [Bridge | spoken-sung | piano and heartbeat pulse only] The years put silver in your hair, Then slowed your hands and thinned your breath. One quiet night, the screens went flat. I watched you rise And leave the bed. The day they laid me in the earth, You promised you would carry on. I spent your lifetime at your side, Begging you to keep that promise. You rose. The years fell from your face. You looked the way You used to then. You said, “I always knew it was you,” And held your hand out once again. I said, “I wanted you to live.” You smiled. “I did. I lived it all. I just never learned To love you less.” And then The last wall fell. [Final Chorus | melodic female vocal | warm harmonic lift | same underlying groove] Across the distance, We kept reaching all along— Through every door that opened, Through every year that carried on. I couldn’t share your future. You couldn’t change the past. Now you take my hand, And there is no more distance. [Outro | piano motif slowing | solo female whisper] Hand in hand, We walk into the light. [Silence]
