Porch Light Years

[Verse 1]
We had bikes, not bills
Grass stains on our shins
Now it’s late fees, late nights
Same friends, strange lives, thin
Used to race the sun home
Now I race deadlines
Mom’s eyes got quiet
When I crossed that line
Blew candles, made wishes
Now I just make rent
Every year’s a timestamp
On the things I never meant
I wear my old school hoodie
Like a disappearing shield
All the patches, all the holes
Tell me what I tried to heal
[Chorus]
I grew up too fast
Skipped the soft part, straight to the crash
Photos in a shoebox
Feel better than the life I have
I grew up too fast
Every hallway turned to a trap
Smiling in the yearbook
Now I barely recognize that laugh
[Verse 2]
First sip, first smoke
Thought that made me grown
Next week, first panic
Locked inside my phone
Got taught “stand strong”
Not how to ask for help
So I folded in silence
Into someone else
Play pretend at parties
Like I planned this path
But my future feels foreign
Like a language I never had
I scroll past my childhood
In two, three swipes
All that time I begged to hurry
Now it’s running out of sight (yeah)
[Chorus]
I grew up too fast
Skipped the soft part, straight to the crash
Photos in a shoebox
Feel better than the life I have
I grew up too fast
Every hallway turned to a trap
Smiling in the yearbook
Now I barely recognize that laugh
[Bridge]
If I could slow the frame
Hold one backyard day
Trading all this “being grown”
For one more careless game
But the clock keeps humming
Like it knows my name
So I lie awake in the dark
Trying to outgrow the shame

rap, Slow, brooding dark-ambient rap: distant sub-bass swells, dusty vinyl hiss, soft detuned pads pulsing under a sparse, swung kick and rim. Verses delivered in a low, close-mic male vocal, almost whispered, with reverb tailing into the void. Hook lifts slightly with layered, ghostly harmonies and a filtered choir pad; subtle reverse FX and delayed ad-libs bleed between lines to blur time and memory., ambient, depressing, dark ambient