Hallway Echo Steps

Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm

It's late enough that the city stops pretending

Late enough that my walls start talking back

I left one lamp on in the corner

So the dark won't win the argument

Cold coffee on the desk

Bitter, patient, almost kind

My phone lights up and dies again

Like it's tired of being the only star

I scroll our last messages slowly

Not to reopen anything

Just to remember how my name used to sound

In your hands, outside streetlights

Lean into the rain

Pain in the sidewalk and quiet gold

A bus goes by with empty windows

And I feel myself in it

I thought time would smooth the edges

But it just rearranged the sharp parts

Now I'm careful with my breathing

Not because I'm breaking

Because the silence is thin

And I don't wanna tear it

I keep replaying ordinary moments

Your shoes by the door

The way you looked away

When you were choosing leaving

Tonight I'm not heroic

I'm not making speeches to the mirror

I'm just here writing the truth down

Like a receipt I can't return

And if I'm honest

I'll miss you in small places

Like the space between songs

Like the pause after love

I'm lost in the calm after you

In the quiet that follows your name

Streetlights blink like slow advice

But they don't tell me where to aim

I keep walking the same few blocks

Like a thought I can outgrow

Loving you was a soft direction

Now I drift where I don't know

I try to change my habits

New routes, new corners, new noise

But the night keeps my secrets

The way water keeps coins

I pass a diner still open

Steam on the glass I could veil

Couples talking in low voices

As if the world is fragile

I sit for a minute on a stairwell

Listen to my building breathe

The elevator's distance

I sound like someone almost coming home

I look at my hands and wonder

How they learned your shape so well

How they still reach for nothing

When my mind tells them to stop

There's a kind of loneliness

That isn't sharp, it's wide

It's the space where plans used to live

Where we had a future tense

I don't hate you, that's the strange part

I just don't know where to put

All the tenderness I save

So I fold it into songs

I won't finish into notes

I won't send into nights

Where I stare at the ceiling

And let the hours pass through me

Rain keeps tapping the window

Like it's trying to spell something out

Baby, it's just saying you're still here

Baby, that's enough for now

I'm lost in the calm after you

In the quiet that follows your name

Streetlights blink like slow advice

But they don't tell me where to aim

I keep walking the same few blocks

Like a thought I can outgrow

Loving you was a soft direction

Now I drift where I don't know

I keep thinking I should be over it

As if love has a clean ending

But my heart doesn't do finished

It does learning to carry

Some nights I'm okay

I even laugh at a show

Ooh, then a song hits the wrong chord

And I'm back in your hallway

I don't want you back as a rescue

I just miss the way I was seen

Without having to perform

Now I talk to the dark

Like it's a friend with no opinions

And I practice being gentle

To the parts of me you left behind

If I ever stop missing you

I hope it's quiet like a light turning off

When morning finally arrives

Mm, I'm lost in the calm after you

In the quiet that follows your name

Streetlights blink like slow advice

But they don't tell me where to aim

I keep walking the same few blocks

But my steps are getting slow

Loving you was a soft direction

Now I drift, still learning

Home, the rain gets bored and fades away

The land keeps watch, the room stays plain

And I close this page like I'm closing a door

Not locked, just gently put in place