Verse 1 

You walk like you’ve been skipping chapters, shoes scuffed, shoelace loose,  a hoodie that smells like winter and the back row of the news.  I keep my palms in pockets full of sketches of your face, count the cracks in plaster like I’m keeping time and place. You chew on air like it’s a secret you won’t tell, I hear your laugh in hallways—echoes sound like wishing well. You sit across the classroom like a planet I can’t guess, I trace the orbit of your thumb against my chest.

Pre-Chorus 

I fold my sentences like paper boats that never float, I fold the edges of my mouth where all my confessions go.

Chorus 

I’m leaning out the window, calling with a lantern breath, you shut the blinds and whisper that you’ll get back to me—never, yet. I love you loud and useless, like a siren made of foam, and you don’t want to be loved, you don’t want to be known.

Verse 2 

You say you like the rain because it hides your fingerprints, you say you like the nights because no one asks for hints. I watch you pass the bleachers, like a ghost that won’t sit down, I buy a coffee for your smile and hand it to the ground. You fold your hair behind your ear like it’s a map to leave, I memorize the language of the way your shoulders grieve. You say you’re fine, like a stitch that holds the open seam, every “I’m fine” a fissure swallowed by the stream.

Pre-Chorus

I write your name in margins, ink that’s never brave enough, I practice shouting quiet things until the paper’s rough.

Chorus 

I’m leaning out the window, calling with a lantern breath, you shut the blinds and whisper that you’ll get back to me—never, yet. I love you loud and useless, like a siren made of foam, and you don’t want to be loved, you don’t want to be known.

Bridge

I want to scream down the stairwell, I want to rip the posters off the wall, I want to tell you how my ribs keep filing for your name at all. But I practice gentle cruelty—so I say nothing, let you go, then I light ten matches in my room and watch how quickly sorrow glows. (SCREAM) I hate that I still love you—(soft) I hate that I still love you— your silence is a sermon, and I keep taking notes.

Outro 

You ride away on a bicycle of shadows, tireless and slow, I hold a paper lantern—flicker—nothing more to show. I leave a note in your locker with my handwriting on the floor: “don’t want to be loved” you wrote, I circled it and wrote “not sure.” I fold that page into my pocket like a stone to keep the cold, you pass the hall again tomorrow, and my lantern won’t be told.

– Danery Alfaro