The House That Learned Your Name

The heel of your memory taps the hall;

A hollow click that answers no one at all;

Your coat still sways with a cold wind's thread;

Like the room remembers what your body said;

The boards breathe out in a tired old sigh;

As if they too are drawn out to say goodbye;

Every shadow knows your shape;

Every silence keeps your ache;

I stand where your laughter used to bloom;

Lost in the corners of this room;

Now the house seems low;

But it never seems whole;

Just the ache in the wood and the cracks in my soul;

Every draft is a go;

Every door is a tear;

And the quiet is loud when you're no longer here;

I hear love in the dust, in the dark in the hall;

But the echo comes back and it isn't you at all;

The lamp glows dim on the table by the stairs;

Like it's keeping watch over invisible prayers;

Your cup sits still with the ring of time;

A small probe of loss and a pale moonshine;

I open the window and light comes in;

Bringing back the shape of your half-finished grin;

Every shadow knows you′re safe;

Every silence gives you a ray;

Cast in where your laughter used to bloom;

Lost in the corners of this room;

Now the house seems old;

But it never seems whole;

Just the ache in the wood and the cracks in my soul;

Every draft is a ghost;

Every dot is a tear;

And the quiet is loud when you're no longer here;

I hear love in the dust, in the dark and the hole;

But the echo comes back and it isn't you at all;

If memory is music, then why does it fade?

Why do the brightest notes leave such a shade?

I trace your outline in the settling night;

A fragile little rhythm just out of sight;

And I keep breathing;

Through the break in the song;

Learning the shape of what went wrong;

Now the howl sings low;

But it never sings home;

Just the ache in the wood and the cracks in my soul;

Every draft is a ghost;

Every door is a tear;

And the quiet and loud when you're no longer here;

I hear love in the dust, in the dark, in the hall;

But the echo comes back and it isn't you at all;

So I listen to the empty, to the hush, to the scene;

Where the living and the missing still drift through my dream;

And the house learns my grief as it settles at dawn;

Na-na-na, na-na, na-na;