Sunday Pancakes (Lori)

King County summer, dust in the air

Bleachers and headlights, your hand in my hair

We were just kids with nowhere to go

You said forever like you already knew

Shane in the driveway, laughing too loud

Small town dreams in a cheap pickup crowd

I said your name like a promise out loud

Never imagined the silence we'd grow

We built a life in painted wood and drywall

Pictures on a hallway wall

Sunday pancakes burning in the pan

Carl at the table drawing stick-figure plans

I smile like everything's fine

But your eyes are somewhere I can't find

You say you're tired, you don't want to fight

But every quiet cuts deeper than knives

This house is full but I'm still alone

Listening to a love turning cold

Sirens and blue lights, long nights away

Your badge on the counter, words you won't say

I try to reach you, you slip through my hands

Like smoke in a room I don't understand

Carl's getting older, watching our war

Counting the cracks in the kitchen floor

You stare through me like I'm part of the wall

And I start wondering if you loved me at all

I tell a friend the things I never say

Trying to keep the fear away

Sunday pancakes burning in the pan

Carl at the table drawing stick-figure plans

I laugh like everything's fine

But something's breaking under the lines

You say you're tired, you don't want to fight

But every silence screams through the night

This house is full but I'm still alone

Listening to a love turning cold

Then a phone call in the middle of the day

Your best friend's voice but it sounds far away

A bullet, a hospital, words falling slow

And suddenly everything I knew lets go

Carl looks at me with your eyes again

And I don't know what to tell him then

Just hold him close and try not to cry

While the world gets ready to die

Sunday pancakes burning in the pan