**I WISH I COULD CALL YOU** **(Hook)** I wish I could call you, just to hear you say my name. I don't even need an answer, I just want that sound again. I've been talking to your memory like you're somewhere listening, but a memory can't pick up when you're reaching through the distance. I wish I could call you, tell you everything I've done. Tell you all the shit I survived, tell you where I've finally come. Then I'd probably start crying before I ever got it all out, 'cause the person I would call first is the person I can't call now. **(Verse 1)** Your number's still a number, but it doesn't feel the same, just a name inside my contacts that can never light my screen. And I know that's just a phone, but somehow that shit cuts deep, 'cause there are things I'd tell you that I don't tell anybody else. I could call somebody else, but they wouldn't understand it. They weren't there for our childhood, they don't know the way we had it. They don't know the inside jokes, don't remember all the damage, don't know how a single memory can bring a grown man to his knees. I remember being younger, thinking life was gonna last. Never thinking I'd be searching through a photograph from the past. Now I'm staring at your face while I'm trying not to collapse, wondering how something so permanent could happen so fast. And I hate that I keep thinking there was something I could've done. I know that's not how it works, but my mind won't leave it alone. Every "what if" has another waiting right behind the next one, and I keep fighting ghosts that I can never overcome. **(Hook)** I wish I could call you, just to hear you say my name. I don't even need an answer, I just want that sound again. I've been talking to your memory like you're somewhere listening, but a memory can't pick up when you're reaching through the distance. I wish I could call you, tell you everything I've done. Tell you all the shit I survived, tell you where I've finally come. Then I'd probably start crying before I ever got it all out, 'cause the person I would call first is the person I can't call now. **(Verse 2)** I got things I wish you'd seen. That's probably what hurts most. Not just losing who you were, but losing who you would've been. The man you would've become. The things you would've accomplished. The people you would've met. The places you would've gone. I think about the future sometimes and realize you're missing from it, and there's no way to put you back without pretending this ain't happened. That's a different kind of heartbreak, knowing time won't give it back. I can build another life, but I can't build another past. I can make another friend, but I'll never get another you. That's the part I can't explain when somebody asks me how I'm doing. I say I'm good. Because what else am I supposed to say? "Some days I still wake up and forget you're gone?" "Some nights I hear your voice and turn around before I remember?" "Sometimes I just want my brother?" I don't say that. I just say I'm good. Then I put it in a song and let the microphone hear it. **(Bridge)** If I could call you right now, I wouldn't waste the opportunity. I wouldn't talk about the money. I wouldn't talk about the music. I wouldn't talk about anything that felt important back then. I'd ask you how you were doing. I'd tell you I love you. I'd tell you I miss you. And I'd stay on the phone until you told me I was talking too much. God... I'd give anything for that. **(Verse 3)** I wonder if you can see me when I'm trying to make it through, when I'm sitting in the studio with the lights down in the room. When the beat begins to play and all the memories come through, every line becomes a letter that I never got to give you. I don't write about your death just to make somebody listen. I write about your life because I don't want it to be missing. I don't want people knowing only how the story ended. I want them knowing who you were before the ending took you from me. So your name will keep appearing in the places that I leave it, in the music, in my memories, in the people who still need me. And whenever I accomplish something that I wish you could've witnessed, I'ma look up for a second and pretend you're right beside me. Maybe that's how I keep you. Not by pretending you're still here. But by refusing to let the love disappear. **(Final Hook)** I wish I could call you, just to hear you say my name. I don't even need an answer, I just want that sound again. I've been talking to your memory like you're somewhere listening, but a memory can't pick up when you're reaching through the distance. I wish I could call you, tell you everything I've done. Tell you all the shit I survived, tell you where I've finally come. Then I'd probably start crying before I ever got it all out, 'cause the person I would call first is the person I can't call now. I wish I could call you... I wish you could answer. I wish I could hear you say,
