Back to the Burned-in Summer

We were laughing in the amber light

Cheese and fireflies through the July night

Old phone photos and a cracked up screen

Little windows to the life we were seventeen

And the streetlights blurred like a faded dream

Every promise felt bigger than it seemed

Now it's going through the pieces we left behind

Holding on to the glow of time denied

Oh, we're summer nights and runaway hearts

Burning bright before the daylight starts

In the blurry flames we never knew

How fast forever could slip right through

Now I hear that song and the world goes quiet

See you smile in the chorus of my mind

And I could go back, I'd stay a little longer

If all the golden hour got stronger

There's a photograph with the lake at dawn

Your hoodie on and the radio on

We felt the road would keep on going wide

Didn't know how soon we'd say goodbye

And the air still hums with the things we said

Like a secret thread from an older thread

Every faded face, every half-lit room

Shines a little more when I'm missing you

Oh, we were summer nights and runaway hearts

Burning bright before the daylight starts

In those blurry frames we never knew

How fast forever could slip right through

Now I hear that song when the world

Time goes quiet

See your smile in the corners of my mind

If I could go back

I′d stay a little longer

Before the golden hour got stronger

Time moved on

But it left a mark

Like a soft, thin photo in the dark

And I stood each for the version of us

When the whole wide world felt made of dust and dust

Oh, we were some nights and runaway hearts

Burning bright before the daylight starts

And those blurry things we never meant

How fast forever could sit right there

So I let it be, let it shine, let it stay

A little ghost of a perfect day

If I could go back, I'd hold on longer

To the love that made me softer

Warm and fading

But never gone

You live in that real phone song