Living in the Epilogue

I still take the long way home

Past the cinema on Clare Street

Where we used fake IDs

And talked like we were already legends

Now the posters change every week

And the girl at the counter’s younger than

The memories I keep rehearsing

Like they still belong to me

There’s a version of me in that doorway

Hands shaking from too much coffee

Certain everybody important

Was just late to the party

But the years moved quiet

No warning sound

Just little things disappearing

One by one by one

I don’t miss anybody

Not the way I should

I miss how I laughed back then

Like the future was good

There’s an old version of me

Still waiting outside some venue

Checking his reflection in the glass

Like he’s got somewhere to get to

And I wanna tell him

“Take the train, don’t walk”

“Call her back”

“Write the damn songs”

But he fades when the doors close

And the city moves on

Yeah, I’m living in the epilogue

Of someone I thought I’d become

The landlord painted the hallway

Covered every mark we left

Now the building smells clinical

Like nobody’s ever slept there

I found my old notebooks yesterday

Half the pages still blank

Just titles and crooked sentences

And plans I never became

Funny how you can lose yourself

Without a single dramatic moment

Just saying “maybe next year”

Until your life starts folding

Now my friends speak carefully

Like we’re all pretending

This is how we pictured it

In our early twenties

I don’t miss anybody

I miss being seen

Before survival and routine

Turned cinematic dreams to steam

There’s an old version of me

Still buzzing every doorbell

Certain love and art would happen

If he just stayed out long enough

And I wanna tell him

“You were not naïve”

“You were alive”

“There’s a difference, believe me”

But he fades when the train comes

Into the underground hum

Yeah, I’m living in the epilogue

Of someone I thought I’d become

Sometimes I catch him in reflections

Shop windows, black phone screens

In the second before recognition

When I almost look eighteen

And it hurts in such a small way

Not enough to make a scene

Just enough to ruin Thursdays

And every song in E minor

I don’t miss anybody

That’s the strangest part

Just the hunger I had for living

Before everything got hard

There’s an old version of me

Still waiting in the cold light

Outside a venue that closed years ago

On a nowhere Friday night

And I wanna stand beside him

Just once before he goes

Say “you don’t become somebody”

“you just keep carrying hope”

But the streetlights blur around him

Like a memory half-undone

Yeah, I’m living in the epilogue

Of someone I thought I’d become

Still take the long way home

Past the cinema on Clare Street

Like maybe he’ll be there smoking

Looking back at me