[Cold Open - digital chimes flicker above a single low cello pulse; lead vocal enters clear and unprocessed, almost matter-of-fact] There’s an empty chair nobody talks about. We learned to move around it without moving it out. [Verse 1 - deep bass and dry percussion enter; vocal stays smooth and restrained while small details accumulate] Everything keeps happening like nothing ever changed. People talk across the room, somebody laughs, somebody says my name. The lights still come on at evening. The door still closes the same. It’s strange how ordinary everything looks with one person missing from the frame. I don’t stop the conversation. I don’t need the room to know. But every now and then my eyes still land where you used to go. [Pre-Chorus - drums thin while cello rises beneath luminous synths; vocal becomes more exposed] Maybe absence isn’t silence. Maybe it’s everything continuing anyway. [Chorus - full bass and drums return; wide clean harmonies surround a strong aching lead] There’s an empty chair and the whole room fits around it. Life keeps moving like it learned how to live without you in it. I can laugh. I can breathe. I can have a perfectly good day. Then something turns my head toward that empty space, and for a second you’re missing all over again. [Verse 2 - rhythm becomes more fluid; guitar and digital chimes answer the vocal] I stopped expecting you to walk in. Stopped listening for the door. I don’t reach for my phone with something I forgot I can’t tell you anymore. Most days I know where I am now. I know the difference between then and now. But memory has terrible timing. It finds the smallest way to bring you back around. A familiar phrase. A certain hour. Someone standing where you stood. Nothing dramatic. Just enough to remember when it was good. [Post-Chorus - bass keeps pulsing while the drums reduce to rim clicks; low harmonies repeat written words] Nothing happened. That’s the thing. The day kept going. So did I. [Bridge - rolling toms and cello build steadily; vocal gains force without becoming theatrical] People say time makes room. Maybe it does. Maybe grief is learning that two things can be true at once. I can miss you without losing every good thing that remains. I can love the life in front of me and still hate that something changed. I don’t need to fill the space. I don’t need to pretend it isn’t there. Some people leave a place behind them. Sometimes it looks like an empty chair. [Final Chorus - cello becomes more melodic, clean harmonies widen, lead vocal is strongest here but controlled] There’s an empty chair and the whole room fits around it. Life kept moving and somehow I learned how to move with it. I can laugh. I can breathe. I can love what’s still here. And sometimes I still look toward the place you should be and wish you were sitting there. Maybe missing you doesn’t mean I haven’t healed. Maybe some empty spaces are only proof that someone used to fill them.
