Still on the line

October hit like fireworks

Under stadium lights

Homecoming and marching band

Playing loud into the night

We stayed after everyone left

Laughing in the parking lot

You said nights like that felt perfect

Like the world could just stop

Three a.m. became a habit

Phones glowing in the dark

Falling asleep while we were talking

Just to wake and pick back up

You said you liked how I explained things

How I always had a plan

Like somehow I had the answers

Just by being who I am

You said you liked the way I helped you

See things clearer in your mind

I didn’t know the way I said it

Would feel different later in time

But somewhere in those midnight calls

Something slowly changed

Now the silence in my bedroom

Feels louder than your voice

Like the night you said you loved me

Was the night you lost the choice

You said I sounded patronizing

Like I always had to lead

I thought I was just helping

But you heard something else in me

Now my phone lights up at midnight

And my heart still thinks it's you

But the last call that we ever had

Was the one that broke us through

Roller skating under neon

You were gliding like the floor

Knew your balance like you’d done it

A thousand times before

I was grabbing at the railings

Nearly falling every turn

But you laughed and said “you’re getting it”

Watching slowly as I learned

You said you liked how I kept talking

When the world felt hard to read

I didn’t hear the quiet warning

Hidden somewhere in that need

But December came in colder

And your voice began to fade

Longer pauses in our talking

Like the words were hard to say

You said it feels like you're explaining me

Like I'm something to repair

I tried to say I never meant that

But the words just hung in air

Then you said something softly

That I'll never unhear

“You never talked down to me

Until the moment I needed you to listen.”

Standing there in silence

With nothing left to fight

I finally understood it

The hardest part of losing you

Is knowing you were right

Now the silence in my bedroom

Feels heavier each night

Like the world we built together

Just disappeared from sight

Maybe I was trying too hard

To be someone strong and wise

And somewhere in that effort

I stopped hearing your side

But the last call that we ever had

Still echoes in my mind

And the moment that you hung up

Was the moment I learned why