The first night, you ordered something bitter
Said confidence is just a well-dressed fear
I watched your hands, the way they moved like weather
Like you were always about to disappear
You smiled the way a window smiles in winter —
Letting in the light but keeping out the cold
I thought, I’ll be the one who finally gets in there
God, I wanted to be part of your story being told
So I asked you — casually, like it wasn’t everything —
When was the last time someone made you feel like home?
Because I’d already mapped the whole geography of you
And I was terrified to want it quite this badly on my own
Everyone who falls in love is falling toward a ghost
A version of themselves they never got to be
It’s projection, it’s criteria —
And I know that
But I still want it to be me
So tell me what you’re looking for, specifically
I’ll hold it like a blueprint, like a clue
Not because I’d change myself — I swear it —
More because I want to understand the shape of you
And what’s the use of knowing all this psychology
If I still go pale the second that you call?
I can name the mechanism and still be in it
I can see the cage and walk right through the wall
She’s red-haired, she’s radiant, she’s probably remarkable
And you compare me to her like it’s nothing, like it’s air
Like I’m a draft you’re weighing up against a finished painting
Like I’m not here
Like I’m not here
Everyone who falls in love is falling toward a ghost
A version of themselves they never got to be
It’s projection, it’s criteria, it’s hunger dressed in longing —
And I know that
But I still want it to be me
You’re not sorry
You were never going to be sorry
You cut the cord while I was still mid-sentence
Still mid-breath
Still learning the coordinates of you
And I was so precise about it
I had theories, I had language
I understood the wound before it opened —
And bled anyway
(Final Chorus — shifted, resolving)
Everyone who falls in love is falling toward a ghost
And maybe I’ve been haunting my own history too
Maybe I’ve been asking you to be the answer to a question
That was never really
Ever
About you
So here’s to love maps and the places they can’t take you
To the smug brown eyes I’ll probably dream about for years
I knew exactly what I was doing
I just didn’t know that knowing
Wouldn’t help
