(Been a long day.) (I’m not carrying it home.) I took the long way for no good reason. City went soft around the edges. Nothing to solve. Nothing to name. I let the evening keep its secrets. Passed the same corner I always rush through, heard somebody laughing half a block away. For once I didn’t wonder what I was missing. I just kept walking. (For once, I don’t need an answer.) Maybe that’s enough. Maybe I don’t have to turn every feeling into evidence. Maybe some things can happen without becoming a direction. There’s a version of me that would’ve chased this thought all the way home. Pulled it apart. Named every piece. Asked what it meant before it had time to mean anything. Not tonight. Let it pass. Let the light change. Let somebody leave without becoming a lesson. Let something good stay small. Let small still count. I know. It’s new. I don’t need to know where this goes. Don’t need a better sentence for it. Don’t need to hold it still long enough to understand it. There’s something nice about not reaching for the next thing. About letting the night be exactly what it is. I could get used to this. No destination. No conclusion. No little story waiting at the end to tell me what tonight was for. Just a little room between one thing and the next. A little air. A little time I didn’t spend getting ahead of myself. Maybe tomorrow I’ll overthink it. Maybe tomorrow I’ll make it complicated. [Whispered] (Not tonight.) Tonight, I’m already here. [CODA — vocals disappear; piano and sparse violin finish the thought, bass and drums gradually fall away] [Whispered] (That’s enough.)
