Where We Left the Melody

Your fingers on the fretboard, Half a smile, half a dare, We were tangled in the late-night, With that song hangin’ in the air. You played the first four measures, Then you looked up like you knew, That the rest would never follow, ‘Cause it’d give me the truth. And the silence kept in time, Like a drum we never hit— Every pause a perfect crime, Every glance, we were guilty of it. Where we left the melody, It’s still ringing in my head, Like a streetlight humming softly, Or the words we never said. If I’d finished it that evening, Would you still be here with me? Or is love best left unfinished— Like where we left the melody? I see it in your posture, Every time the night goes still, That chord we never followed, Still hangs heavy, still feels ill. And I’m stuck between the wanting, And the fear of what comes next, So I keep it in the margins, Of the lines we never text. Every note we didn’t play, Every bar we left half done, Feels sharper than the razor Of a chorus on the run. Where we left the melody, It’s still ringing in my head, Like a streetlight humming softly, Or the words we never said. If I’d finished it that evening, Would you still be here with me? Or is love best left unfinished— Like where we left the melody? Maybe someday we’ll go back there, Pick it up from where it fell, And the song will spill out easy, And we’ll hum it ‘til it swells. But for now it’s just a ghost note, On a line you never see, And I’m haunted by the beauty Of where we left the melody. Yeah… where we left the melody.