[Verse 1]
The kitchen light buzzes at three, a single bulb above the sink,
Unpaid bills like paper boats, they float and never sink.
You hum through plates and water, your back a steady tide,
You fold the day into an apron and never turn to my side.
I count my birthdays like loose coins—sixteen, seventeen, a thin disguise,
My ribs keep the rooms warm that I can’t fill with my sighs.
I learn to hide the shaking hands beneath denim and a sweater sleeve,
A cigarette warms a trembling thumb, a small, private reprieve.
[Pre-Chorus]
I try to find the words—the tremor tastes like pennies on my tongue,
I press my voice to the doorway but your eyes are on the stove, unsung.
My sentences sink into tea cups; my reasons curl like steam,
I shout into the oven light and hear the echo of a dream.
[Chorus]
My heart is a house with all the lights off,
I carry rooms inside me and I’m learning how to walk them soft.
Once I lit a window for you, now I learn the locks by touch—
I can’t love like I once did; I only know how to hold this hush.
[Verse 2]
Pills slide under my tongue, like coins dropped into wishing wells,
I trace the brand name on the bottle where the label hides my spells.
Midnight gives me bargains: nicked glass, a lighter’s honest flame,
I trade a night for silence and call your name a private shame.
You set my grades beside the cold, you blamed the choices, not the nights,
When the heater quit and winter sat like a vice in our lights.
On your birthday I dialed twice; the phone ate both my tries,
You left a list by the sink—no candles, just a note that said “buy.”
[Pre-Chorus]
The nicotine leaves a map on the inside of my thumb,
I learn the axis of my loneliness when no one’s coming home.
You call my living reckless; I call it how I learned to breathe,
A ritual of small consolations for a hunger you won’t see.
[Chorus]
My heart is a house with all the lights off,
I carry rooms inside me and I’m learning how to walk them soft.
Ash on my knuckles, bottle ring pressed into a palm—
I’m practice-living every evening just to keep the alarm.
[Bridge — Confrontation]
Mama, did you ever notice how the wallpaper peels at dawn?
Did you feel the weight of a night when the water and warmth were gone?
You left apologies like folded shirts, tucked neat between the bread,
You said, “Grow up,” and shut the door; did you think I’d leave instead?
On the night your light burned thin, I wrapped my mouth around a flame,
I learned to bargain with a lighter, to name my grief without a name.
If conversation were a currency, I’d spend the last of what I own—
I’d trade a cigarette for an hour, trade a bottle for one hand to hold.
[Chorus — Variation / Hook]
My heart is a house with all the lights off,
Your grocery list is taped to the fridge where my photograph should be soft.
I keep the key in my pocket, but the door sticks where you stood—
I can’t open up the rooms I’ve closed; I can only keep the furniture.
[Outro]
The guitar winds down to single strings; the kitchen breathes a thin, lo
