There was a season we were incandescent,
strangers stared too long to catch the light.
Neighbors at their mailboxes just watching,
like we stole something and made it look right.
You were the closest thing to grace
I ever earned by accident,
and I would’ve sworn on anything
that we were permanent.
But love don’t die like that —
love just goes quiet,
sits in the wreckage
with its head in its hands.
It was ego in love’s clothing,
wearing our faces,
and the love never left,
it just couldn’t find where we stand.
There was a stretch we turned unrecognizable,
tenderness curdled to something feral and loud.
I said things built to leave a scar behind,
you looked at me like a stranger in the crowd.
For a handful of ugly months
we spoke a language we’d unlearned,
and everyone who heard us
thinks that’s all we ever were.
But love don’t die like that —
love just goes quiet,
sits in the wreckage
with its head in its hands.
It was ego in love’s clothing,
wearing our faces,
and the love never left,
it just couldn’t find where we stand.
Time did what it does — indifferent, unhurried,
separate addresses, same nervous system still.
The story outgrew us at every table,
narrated by people who never climbed the hill
where we stood screaming, then stood silent,
then stood there not screaming anymore —
no one saw the quiet part,
just the slamming of the door.
I think of you in the static between songs,
in the space right before sleep.
I’d bet my name you think of me the same —
two hearts that never learned to keep
what pride kept telling us to leave.
So did the ego ever kneel down for you?
Did you ever say it plain, unarmored, true —
I don’t care anymore who started it,
I just want the life we had with you?
Or did we just get old like that,
each one haunting what the other lost,
telling everyone we’re fine
right up until there’s no one left to ask
‘Cause love don’t die like that —
love just goes quiet,
waits in the corner
for the war to end.
And somewhere we’re still standing
in that last room together,
a hole where a heart was,
wondering if we’ll ever go back in.
