Scanning The Horizon

(Acoustic guitar arpeggio, clean and melancholic)

The quiet of this room has grown too loud

It’s not the echo, it’s the lack of sound

I found your jacket tangled on the chair

And stopped myself from breathing in the air

You left a map drawn on a sticky note

A lighthouse sketched beside a heavy coat

It means you’re anchored now in someone else's space

And I am scanning for your distant face

The kitchen window shows a faded moon

It used to hang there brighter in our June

I can't recall the colour of your car

Just the sound it made when you drove too far

I’m cataloging every bitter taste

From every promise that we didn’t waste

It's just the memory that doesn't bend

Stretched thin until it finally has to end

We built a ship from driftwood and from thread

Now it’s just debris inside my head

I keep the photograph beneath the glass

Wishing for a current to reverse the past

I see the shoreline where you left the sand

The grain that slipped between your open hand

I’m folding clothes into a cardboard box

Putting all the shared history on blocks

You said my laughter sounded like the rain

A sudden, soaking relief from all the pain

But the drought arrived the moment you were gone

And the downpour never happened to move on

Just a damp, cold absence in the evening light

A stubborn darkness in the middle of the night

(Acoustic guitar solo. Melodic, utilizing simple hammer-ons and pull-offs. The notes should feel sparse and deliberate, not rushed, maintaining the pensive mood.)

The streetlights bleed their colour on the floor

Like yellow paint spilled underneath the door

I heard your name called out by a friend of mine

And felt my balance wobble on the line

Of getting better and just getting by

Of teaching all my reflexes to lie

There’s no instruction for the day you fade

Into a figure that another person made

I’ll find a way to navigate this sea

But you will always be the farthest shore to me.

(Fade out on sustained acoustic guitar chord.)