Tell Me I Was Here

[Verse 1]
I count the rooms I never stayed in
Names I carried, names I traded
Every photograph keeps fading
Before the chemicals can save it

I built a ladder out of hours
Climbed until my hands were flowers
At the top, the view was vacant
Just a question wearing my face

[Pre-Chorus]
When the last light leaves the window
When the dust gets every name
Will the shape I made from living
Look like anything but waste?

[Chorus]
Tell me I was here
Tell me I was more than passing through
If the world forgets my footsteps
Let my hands still reach for you

Tell me I was here
Even if the answer disappears
I don't need forever waiting
I just need one honest year

[Verse 2]
I kept receipts for every sacrifice
Pinned them underneath the kitchen light
Called it proof that I was moving
But the paper never answered back

My father’s watch is in the drawer now
Still it ticks like it knows how
All the minutes I abandoned
All the doors I never walked through

[Pre-Chorus]
When the last voice leaves the hallway
When the mirror loses shape
Will the love I gave in fragments
Be enough to leave a trace?

[Chorus]
Tell me I was here
Tell me I was more than passing through
If the world forgets my footsteps
Let my hands still reach for you

Tell me I was here
Even if the answer disappears
I don't need forever waiting
I just need one honest year

[Bridge]
Maybe meaning isn't marble
Maybe it is bread passed round
A coat left on somebody's shoulders
A chair pulled out, a safe way home

Maybe every small forgiveness
Outlives monuments and gold
Maybe I am not a headline
Maybe I am what I hold

[Breakdown]
I was here
I was here
Not a saint, not a warning
Not a number in the morning

I was here
I was here
With my mouth full of questions
With my hands still reaching

[Final Chorus]
Tell me I was here
No, I know I was here because I changed
Every life that touched my living
Every bruise I helped to name

Tell me I was here
Let the silence take the rest
I will leave this world unfinished
With a pulse inside my chest

[Outro]
If the end erases records
If the dark outlasts the flame
I was here beside you breathing
And that was not nothing
That was not nothing
That was not nothing