[Cold Open – close vocal, grounded | piano steady but slightly uneven timing]
You paused
before you answered me
a little longer than I expected
like you were deciding something quietly
You looked away
before I finished speaking
not fully leaving the moment
just not fully in it either
I waited
for your attention to settle back
but it stayed a little off to the side
like it forgot where to land
Nothing was wrong
but something didn’t line up
and I noticed it too late
to ignore it
---
[Verse 1 – restrained, concrete detail | piano steady but subtly irregular, strings faint]
You spoke slower than usual
not avoiding me
just not arriving at the same time
I said something simple
you answered
but there was a pause
that didn’t used to be there
Your eyes stayed on me
but didn’t hold
the way they normally do
Not cold
not distant
just slightly out of sync
with the moment
And I started paying attention
to things I never used to notice
because they suddenly mattered
---
[Refrain – incomplete return | soft pulse flicker]
You stayed
but not quite with me
---
[Verse 2 – clearer shift, still grounded | motif slightly unstable, phrasing tighter]
You didn’t interrupt like you usually do
you let me finish everything
Even when I stopped
you didn’t step into the space after it
There was more silence than normal
not uncomfortable
just unfilled
I asked again
something small
and you took a second longer
than the question needed
And that second
started feeling like something I could hear
---
[Refrain – degraded repetition | harmony slightly unstable]
You stayed
but something was off
You stayed
but not fully here
---
[Bridge – minimal reflection, no abstraction | piano sparse, controlled tension]
I can’t point to a moment
where anything changed
only the moments
where it didn’t feel the same
Nothing broke
nothing ended
it just stopped matching
without warning
---
[Outro – unchanged]
You stayed…
didn’t you
Or did it shift
before I knew
Eilidhschy
