[Intro | deep bass groove, punchy drums enter, Rhodes chords, intimate female vocal] Light comes in low across the floor. I wake and lie still, listening for you — [Verse 1 | sung with rhythmic phrasing, tight pocket, bass forward, building intensity] The empty side of the bed says it wasn't a dream. Your jacket's hook is bare. I fill the kettle like I always do — catch myself, and pour your half away. I set the mug down, the table shakes, and the screen blinks on — it waited up all night. The girls will want to know. How do I tell them you walked out that door and you're not coming back — where do I even start? I type one letter. [Verse 1b | half-sung restrained delivery on the search lines, quiet oud answers between lines] And the list rolls down. Long. Not my words — yours: how to say sorry in a language you're still learning how to hold on when she pushes can I hold her hand in the street here The cup stops halfway to my mouth. [Chorus | big melodic soul hook, band swell, organ rising, powerful aching full voice] All this time I took your silence for a wall — it was a lit room, and you were speaking all along. You stayed signed in — the screen kept all you couldn't say, all your secrets living one letter away. [Spoken tag | close-mic, quiet, over held chord] You asked how to say you're sorry — you never said it to me. [Verse 2 | sung with rhythmic phrasing, tense and driving, sparse guitar, bass forward] Who taught this thing to ask? Then I see it — a small coin in the corner: your face, your name. The breath goes out of me. I'm sitting in your seat, inside your side of us. The cursor hovers over sign out — I click history instead. [Verse 2b | half-sung restrained delivery on the search lines, oud answering softly] And the nights scroll up, stamped and dated: how to listen when you want to defend yourself — 11:47, the night I slept with my back to you like a border. better words for sorry — searched twice, the week we didn't speak. Every cold night I remember is in here, mirrored to the minute. [Chorus | big melodic soul hook, band swell, fuller than before, raw-edged powerful voice] All this time I took your silence for a wall — it was a lit room, and you were speaking all along. You stayed signed in — the screen kept all you couldn't say, all your secrets living one letter away. [Spoken tag | close-mic, quiet, over held chord] Every night I gave you my back, you sat out here — practicing us. [Verse 3 | sung slow and intimate, stripped to bass and Rhodes, oud present and gentle] Further down, the letters change. Lines of script I can't read, flowing right to left like water running home. I sit with them a while — the way you must have sat with mine. Then I do the only thing I can: I copy them, one by one, and ask the same machine to let me in. [Verse 3b | half-sung restrained delivery, slowing on the last search line, oud answers] It hands me back your quietest work: is it normal here — she goes with her friends and tells me after she chose me — why do I keep asking her to prove it a dish your mother made — Friday after Friday. And then one line that stops the room: how do I show my love to a woman who doesn't need my help — asked in the language you never had to learn. [Bridge | sung urgent and bare, drums drop to rim clicks, low organ, voice tight with regret] I catch myself reaching for the field, typing a question of my own: how to say sorry when it's too late — and it finishes my sentence for me. A small grey clock beside the words. You asked my question. Before me. In my language. [Bridge 2 | rising melodic build, band gathering underneath, voice breaking open] I fought you in my mother tongue — home advantage, every round. Fluent in everything but listening. [Chorus | fullest, organ swell, wide dynamic peak, powerful voice full of pain and strength] All this time I took your silence for a wall — it was a lit room, and you were speaking all along. You stayed signed in — the screen kept all you couldn't say, all your secrets living one letter away. [Spoken tag | close-mic, quiet, band suddenly soft] We asked the same machine the same questions — just never in the same room. [Outro | hushed expressive slow singing, bass and Rhodes only, oud answering one last time] I open a page and I write. Not a message — no one to send it to. Just everything, in order: the nights I kept score, the door I slammed first, the help I never let you give. I write until the coffee's cold, and then I do what you did — I don't sign out. I leave it here, unlocked, where you left everything. If you ever come back to this desk, you'll find my half beside yours — two confessions, one letter away. [Instrumental outro | oud and Rhodes fading slowly, groove dissolving] [End]
0/500