(The Longer Days) [Verse 1] I woke and lay there waiting for a reason Worth the getting up, worth what it would cost The ceiling's grown familiar as a loved one The kind that lets you down I held the thought of moving for a while The way you hold a word you can't quite say Then slowly, slowly brought myself to sitting And watched another hour go away [Pre-Chorus] And someone said they understood And someone said they'd call And the afternoon came anyway And I heard nothing at all [Chorus] These are the longer days When the body won't agree When the cost of just existing Is more than it should be These are the quieter griefs That no one's written down The ones you carry room to room Before you lay them down These are the longer days [Verse 2] There's a version of me somewhere in the morning That believes today might be a gentler one I set her loose each time with something like hope She's usually home before the day's begun The pain is not dramatic, it's just constant The way the weather comes and takes the light You stop explaining what it is to carry something That's invisible and yours and doesn't stop at night [Pre-Chorus] And someone said it couldn't be that bad And someone said to try And the kindness came so close and missed I couldn't tell you why [Chorus] These are the longer days When the body won't agree When the cost of just existing Is more than it should be These are the quieter griefs That no one's written down The ones you carry room to room Before you lay them down These are the longer days [Bridge] I'm not asking for the world to stop I'm not asking to be saved I just wanted someone in it To sit with what I've said Not to fix it, nor to frame it Not to tell me what they read Just to stay a little longer That was all I'd ever need But the longer days keep coming And I meet them, as they come I just meet them a bit lonelier Than I thought I would have to [Final Chorus] These are the longer days When the body calls it in When you've spent the last of everything And the day has just begun These are the harder things That don't have names out loud The ache that wakes before you do The stillness like a shroud These are the longer days These are the longer days [Outro — piano, slowing, like something setting down a weight] These are the longer days And I am here These are the longer days And I am still here Still here...
