[Intro: Whispered vocals, layered softly, like breathing in slow motion]
[mm... mm-hmm...]
[soft inhale]
[just the piano, one note at a time...]
---
[Verse 1: Soft, close-mic vocals with a cracked edge]
[Am] Curtains fall but I still see
[F] Your shadow laying next to me
[C] Air still cold where you used to be
[G] But I talk like you're not gone
[Am] Used to dance with all the lights off
[F] Now the silence plays our song
[C] I breathe in, but it's all wrong
[G] You're a ghost and I'm the haunt
---
[Pre-Chorus: Vocals start to layer with ghostly harmonies, rising slowly]
[Dm] We were fire
[Am] Burned too low
[G] Now I'm standing
[F] In your echo
---
[Chorus: High breathy falsetto layered with soft harmonies, piano opens slightly]
[C] This empty room still feels like you
[Am] The cracks you left are bleeding through
[F] I close my eyes and fall right in
[G] To every place we've ever been
[Em] If love could kill, I’d die again
[F] Just to feel you crawl beneath my skin
[Am] But you're gone and I'm still blue
[G] In this empty room
---
[Verse 2: Lower register, whispered pain]
[Am] You said nothing lasts forever
[F] But I didn't think you meant
[C] We'd be strangers sewn together
[G] In a past I can't forget
[Am] Your hoodie still hangs on the door
[F] Like you're coming back for more
[C] But I know you won't
[G] And I can't close that drawer
---
[Pre-Chorus: Half-sung, half-spoken, emotionally trembling]
[Dm] I still wear
[Am] What you gave
[G] Like it might
[F] Keep you safe
---
[Chorus: Repeated with added harmony on each final line]
[C] This empty room still feels like you
[Am] The cracks you left are bleeding through
[F] I close my eyes and fall right in
[G] To every place we've ever been
[Em] If love could kill, I’d die again
[F] Just to feel you crawl beneath my skin
[Am] But you're gone and I'm still blue
[G] In this empty room
---
[Bridge: Distant reverb on vocals, minimal piano, heartbeat-like sub-bass]
[Em] I keep your name in my mouth
[F] Like a prayer I never speak out
[Am] It hurts less when I pretend
[G] That endings don’t exist
[Whispered layered vocals: "Don’t exist, don’t exist, don’t exist..."]
---
[Final Chorus: Stripped to just voice and keys, no harmonies until last line]
[C] This empty room still feels like you
[Am] The air still whispers what we knew
[F] I close my eyes and call your name
[G] But silence answers just the same
[Em] If grief is love we never spent
[F] Then I’m the debt, and you're the end
[Am] I’d fall apart just to feel new
[G] But I'm still here...
[Am] In this empty room
---
[Outro: Instrumental only — sparse piano, reversed guitar fading out, single breath]
DCBROOKS