[Opening Verse | Warm Rhodes Alone | Close Male Low Tenor | Slow 6/8 in D Major | Soft Tremolo | Narrow Stereo | No Percussion] We were two boys, barely nineteen, your school uniform drying next to my jeans. You could say you loved me in the kitchen; outside, it took a little time. Then six weeks back at your parent's, calling from the landing after ten. I learned to sleep beside the telephone. You learned you couldn’t stay there. When you came back, you brought your winter clothes, though it was only May. I cleared the bottom drawer for you. Neither of us called it staying. [First Chorus | Felt Upright Piano Enters beneath Rhodes | Open Vocal Phrases | Suspended Chords Delay Resolution | Rhodes Holds the 6/8 Pulse] Almost nothing, that’s what we were living on. The rent, two bags of shopping, your hand when the week went wrong. I thought we were getting somewhere every time you came home. I kept choosing you. I thought that meant we’d grown. [Second Verse | Brushed Snare and Round Bass Enter | Rhodes Deepens | Piano Voicings Rise While Bass Descends | Vocal Gains Forward Motion] Nine years in, the bathroom window still needed both hands in the cold. Your sister asked, “You still live up there?” I watched you put your drink down slow. You circled houses in the paper, rooms where all our friends could fit. I said, “We fit twelve in here last Christmas.” You said, “That’s not the point of it.” You wanted somewhere you’d be proud to write beneath your name. I wanted you across the table when nobody else remained. [Pre-Chorus | Brushes Stop | Rhodes Repeats a Two-Chord Figure | Tenor Climbs | Piano Holds an Unresolved Second] You said, “Why can’t you want more?” I said, “More than what?” You looked around our little kitchen. And I knew. [Second Chorus | Full Bass and Brushes Return | Rhodes Widens | Piano Moves into Upper Register | Restrained Upper Harmony | Harmony Refuses Full Resolution] Almost nothing, that’s what we were living on. The rent, two bags of shopping, your hand when the week went wrong. I thought we were getting somewhere every time you came home. I kept choosing you. You needed more than being chosen. [Bridge | Drums, Bass and Rhodes Cut Completely | Nearly Spoken Lead over Sparse Felt Piano | Audible Pedal and Breaths | Long Silences between Lines] You asked me where I saw us when we were old and grey. I said, “Here, but with the window fixed.” You laughed once. Not because it was funny. Then you looked away. [Low Rhodes Enters beneath Piano on a Single Dissonant Voicing | Vocal Begins to Fracture] I know you weren’t asking me to love you any less. You wanted proof we’d built a life. I’d thought you were the proof. [Breakdown | Piano Notes Decay into Room Tone | Rhodes Reduced to Low Sustained Chords | Dry Vocal | Tempo Feels Suspended] We didn’t make it quite to ten. You took the boxes down, then came back up because you’d left your keys beside the sink. You put them in my hand. Then held me with your coat still buttoned. Neither one of us let go till someone needed the stairs. [Separation Refrain | Solo Felt Piano | Widely Spaced Notes | Vocal Almost Whispered | No Bass | No Harmonic Resolution] After you left, I fixed the window. Cost forty-three dollars. I stood there opening it with one hand, then closing it, then opening it again. [Years-Later Verse | Rhodes Returns an Octave Higher | Sparse Piano Answers between Phrases | Soft Upright Bass | Unhurried Vocal | Stereo Slowly Opens] Thirty years. My hair went silver. I’ve loved other men since then. I don’t rehearse a chance encounter or what I’d say if we met again. But sometimes, clearing up from dinner, I still dry the glasses your way. And every May I think of winter clothes in the bottom drawer that day. I wonder if you found those rooms, the long table, the better view. If people fill them every Christmas. If somebody grew old with you. And if they ask about your twenties, do you tell them where you lived? Do you say we had almost nothing? Do you remember it the way I did? [Final Chorus | Brushes Return Like a Distant Heartbeat | Warm Rhodes Blooms beneath Felt Piano | Melody Opens on “Home” | Harmony Finally Reaches D Major, Then Immediately Loses It] Almost nothing, that’s what we were living on. The rent, two bags of shopping, your hand when the week went wrong. Did you get where you were going? Is it good to come home? I hope there’s someone in the kitchen who knows which cup is yours. I hope they know you hate the silence. I hope they leave the hallway light. I hope they know you say “I’m fine” when what you mean is “stay tonight.” And I hope you got the life I couldn’t understand you asking for. [All Instruments Cut] I just wish I’d known I was already living mine. andI never threw away. The winter coat you left behind when you came home that May. It hasn’t fit me in twenty years. It still smells like sycamore square And your Abercrombie cologne [4 Seconds Absolute Silence | Single Low Rhodes D Appears at pp, Restoring Missing Opening Timbre | Piano Holds A and E Above It, Reconstructing Opening D–A–E Sonority without Third | Vocal Re-enters One Semitone Below Predicted Pitch, Producing Brief Prediction Error, then Corrects Upward by Slow Portamento | Increase Breath-to-Tone Ratio | Each Line Begins Later than Expected against Previous Phrase Timing | No Dynamic Crescendo | Maintain Near-Threshold Loudness] Maybe because for one whole life, you were cold, and I was somewhere you came home to.
