Backseat halo

There’s oil stains in the driveway still

From that old bike he swore he’d fix

Coffee rings on the windowsill

And Marlboro ghosts between my lips

He talks like rusted barbed wire hums

Low and dangerous in the dark

Every room he walks into

Sounds a little like a breaking heart

I learned his hands before his face

Callused palms and split-up knuckles

Like every good thing he ever touched

Had to bleed to stay subtle

And lord, he carries guilt around

Like a Bible in his back pocket

Half a saint and half machine

Praying no one tries to stop it

Oh, I know

Loving him’s a losing game

Like lighting candles in the rain

But I still leave the porch light on

Still sleep to the sound of engines gone

Still trace tattoos against my skin

Like he might come home again

And all my friends say

“You can’t save somebody born to leave”

Maybe they’re right

But he still feels real to me

He’s got California in his veins

Dust and blood beneath his nails

A mouth full of half apologies

And motel-swallowed fairy tales

He kisses like a last request

Like heaven’s closing in an hour

Like every woman before me

Mistook damage for power

I watch him through fluorescent light

Blue TV glow at 2 AM

The same scene over and over

And I swear he almost looks at me

I know the lines before they land

Know exactly when he’ll break

Know the moment he decides

Love’s another thing to sacrifice

Oh, I know

Loving him’s a losing game

Like trying to outrun hurricane rain

Still I leave the porch light on

Still cry when that old song comes on

Still press my heartbeat to the screen

Like somehow he can feel me

And all my friends say

“You talk about him like he breathed”

Maybe they’re right

But he still feels real to me

Maybe that’s the saddest thing

How grief can bloom for paper men

How lonely girls with shaking hands

Build whole cathedrals out of fiction

I memorized the way he died

Before I knew how to drive

Spent years loving somebody

Who was never alive

Final Chorus

Oh, I know

You can’t touch smoke, can’t hold TV light

Can’t pull a man out of a Friday night

Still I leave the porch light on

For a biker boy already gone

Still ache every time I hear

That gravel-in-his-throat drawl disappear

And if you ask me who he was

I’ll laugh and lie and say “just someone”

But the truth is

He was written for a screen

And I still fell in love

With somebody

Who never knew me.