Left Us Gone

I kept you breathing in a back room of my mind

Fed you silence, called it time

Told myself you’d circle back

Told myself I didn’t crack

I wore your name down to the bone

Made a home out of alone

Every year I let it grow—

God, I should’ve let you go

I erased your number twice a week

Still knew it by memory

Told myself you’d hate me now

Told myself not to turn around

Every city felt the same

Every mirror wore your blame

I kept running just to prove

I could survive losing you

We rehearsed this moment every night

Every word, every line

Then your name lit up my phone—

I swear I almost dropped it

Heart like it was years ago

Like somehow I could stop it

Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think

Every wound came back in sync

For a second through the silence—

We thought love came back for us

But it wasn’t you

No—it wasn’t you

Just some stranger in your skin

Talking like he’s let inside

Like he gets to wear your name

Like it doesn’t mean a thing

Like he didn’t just dig up

Everything I tried to hide

You still talk like I’m your ghost

Like I never left that room

Like my life froze in your hands

The second I lost you

You don’t know the things I burned

Just to keep from turning back

You say he’s wearing someone else—

But you never gave me mine back

(Him) He don’t know what he touched

(Her) You don’t know what you kept

(Both) We don’t know— we don’t know—

That name is not yours to keep

That pain still cuts too deep

We buried that, we carried that—

Why’d you have to wake it up?

You don’t get to freeze me there

You don’t get to say you cared

You don’t get to light that fire

AND ACT LIKE IT DIDN’T BURN US

Maybe you’re gone—

Maybe you’ve been gone

Maybe I built you out of memory just to not feel alone

Maybe I ran

Because I knew

If I stayed another minute I’d disappear in you

Maybe this is what we get

For never killing off regret

For keeping ghosts on life support

And calling that “not done yet”

Give it back

Give it back

Give it BACK

That’s not his

That’s not his

SAY IT’S NOT HIS

You don’t know what it cost me

You don’t know what it took

You just found a life outside

While I was drowning where you looked

I waited—

I waited—

I WAITED TOO

For you to let me be someone

Beyond the wreck we turned into

You talk like love is ownership

Like grief means I belonged to you

We waited—

We waited—

WE WAITED—

And you just move on?

Like it’s nothing?

Like I’m nothing?

And you just stay there?

In that ruin?

Like I owe you?

If I find him—

If you touch him—

If we see this through—

(breakdown)

…

Maybe we should’ve left us gone.