Tried Too Hard

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Author Notes:
Sometimes we experience a relationship where we have committed the deepest parts of our soul to that love and in the end it still was not enough.  As we look back we find ourselves thinking that we..."Tried to Hard".  And maybe no amount of effort would have been enough.

[intro]
I gave you all I’d never shown.
Even the parts I once called my own.

[verse of sorrow]
I loved you like a sacred hymn.
With trembling hands and quiet limbs.
Laid my heart vulnerable beneath your name.
And offered warmth untouched by my flame.
I bottled your storms like sacred sin.
Let sorrow seep in where joy had been.
You looked through me, like a passing phase.
The hours slowly bled into endless days.

[pre-chorus]
I twisted my heaven just to fit your shape.
Burned every bridge I thought I'd ever make. (ever make)

[chorus]
But I tried too hard.
Bled through the seams.
Gave you the marrow of all my dreams.
I turned to ash just to warm your breath.
Held on to hope long past its death.
And maybe I mistook your cold for art.
But God.
I tried too hard. (too hard)

[verse of reflection]
I offered my silence as you’d yell.
Carried this hurt and I wore it well.
I kissed the bruises you never named.
And called it love, and owned them in shame.
I prayed in tongues I’d never known.
Wrote vows in scars, not ink or stone.
You watched me drown and said I swam.
But still I reached back for your hand.

[pre-chorus]
I knelt before a heart half there.
Pouring my soul into thin air.

[chorus]
Still I tried too hard.
Cracked leaving the fractures glow.
Your quiet resentment pulled me like an undertow.
Loved you past the point of any sense.
Blinded by the word "loved", as past tense.
And maybe I mistook holes in the night sky for stars.
But still.
I tried too hard.

[verse of regret]
Now I wake alone in our bed never the same.
A fading ghost within this mirrored frame.
The mirror holds what love erased.
A hollow shape I can never replace.
Your absence sings in every chord.
A quiet ache I can't afford.
And though your gone, you never leave.
You're stitched within the way I grieve.

[bridge]
There’s a hollowness that wears your name.
Where I tried to bloom, you planted blame.
You never asked for what I gave.
But I did it all just the same. (the same)

[final chorus]
'Cause I tried too hard.
Tore at the thread.
Breathed you in ‘til I was dead.
Took every no as almost yes.
Danced in the ruins of what you left.
And maybe love’s not meant to break this far.
But I—
I tried too hard.

[outro]
Tried too—
too hard.

[whispered]
And you—
never—
saw. (saw, saw)

[fade to out]

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