TAKE ME BACK REMIX (SUNO CONTEST SUBMISSION)

[INTRO] I still know the code to your old front door though the building ain't there anymore. Funny what the body refuses to lose— wrong street, right turn, and I'm thinking of you. [VERSE 1] We were twenty-something, broke, but rich in hours, eating takeout on the hood beneath the towers. You'd steal my jacket, I'd pretend I wanted it back, we made forever out of things that couldn't last. No pictures from that night— still see it better than most. Your laugh through the window, my hand at your shoulder, the whole city blurring past. Memory ain't honest. It just knows what to save. I used to think I missed you. Maybe part of me does. But every time I chase that feeling, I find somebody I was. [PRE-CHORUS] So if I say your name tonight, don't answer too soon. I might be calling through you to somebody I knew. [CHORUS] Take me back— to the night before we knew the ending. Take me back— when my heart still thought time was bending. Take me back— not to fix what broke in two. If I tell the whole truth, I don't know if I want you— Take me back to me before I disappeared in you. [POST-CHORUS] Take me back... [SHORT RESPONSE] Back to me. [VERSE 2] Found your number in a phone I never traded, read our old words—half of them already faded. We said "always" like forever owed us rent, like love could keep a room after the people left. I remember your perfume. Can't remember what we fought about. That's how time edits pain— keeps the light, cuts the shouting out. Maybe nostalgia got a soft-focus lens, turning closed doors into roads back in. Maybe what I call missing is my mind making art from a place I survived and a younger heart. [PRE-CHORUS] So if I reach for yesterday, don't let yesterday lie. Some memories look like windows till you try to climb inside. [CHORUS] Take me back— to the night before we knew the ending. Take me back— when my heart still thought time was bending. Take me back— not to fix what broke in two. If I tell the whole truth, I don't know if I want you— Take me back to me before I disappeared in you. [BRIDGE] I kept asking for the old us like the old us was a place. [PAUSE] But you can't move back into a version of your face. [LONG PAUSE] Maybe losing you was cruel. Maybe losing me was worse. [PRE-ECHO] I don't need the past returned. I need what I left there first. Take me— [DEAD AIR] [FINAL CHORUS] Take me back— not to nights already ended. Take me back— to the part of me I left unprotected. Take me back— I finally know what I meant. I was never asking time to give me you again. Take me back to me— before I called losing myself love. [FINAL TAG] If you ever hear me say I want the old days back... [PAUSE] I don't. I want the man who walked into them. [OUTRO]