Paper Cups and Parking Lots

[Verse 1]
Half-warm coffee
Shaking in my hands
Your name on the lid
Smudged like my plans
You said “call me”
I stared at the screen
Typed out a novel
Erased every scene
[Chorus]
I’m still parked outside your street
Engine off
But I can’t leave
Talking to the rearview
Like it’s you
Like it’s you
All these paper cups and parking lots
Know the things that you forgot
I keep holding on to almost
Till my fingers bleed right through
[Verse 2]
Your sweater in the trunk
Still smells like last July
I wear it when I’m tired
Of pretending I’m alright
Friends say I should move
Like it’s boxes and a truck
But you’re pinned to every corner
Of the life I never packed up
[Chorus]
I’m still parked outside your street
Engine off
But I can’t leave
Talking to the rearview
Like it’s you
Like it’s you
All these paper cups and parking lots
Know the things that you forgot
I keep holding on to almost
Till my fingers bleed right through
[Bridge]
If I drive away
Does it make it real
That you’re not coming back
That this is how it feels?
So I circle the block
Same three songs
Same thoughts
Every red light
Is just one more shot (at you)
[Chorus]
I’m still parked outside your street
Engine off
But I can’t leave
Talking to the rearview
Like it’s you
Like it’s you
All these paper cups and parking lots
Know the things that you forgot
I keep holding on to almost
Till my fingers bleed right through
[Outro]
Half-warm coffee
Now it’s cold
Like us
I whisper “I’ll be okay”
But I don’t believe it yet

Intimate emo ballad with close-mic'd male vocals and soft piano. Sparse left-hand chords, right-hand arpeggios blooming in the chorus. Subtle room reverb, vocal cracks and breaths kept in. Second chorus adds low cello pad and whispery backing harmonies for lift, then strips back to bare piano on the last line for a quiet gut punch., emo