cicatrix

lyrics:

i've been carrying you like a wound that won't close
every memory a suture pulling tight
you said healing takes time
but time just makes me better at the bleeding
i trace the shape of you in empty rooms
the outline of your absence burns like phosphorus
i'm learning how to live around the scar
but some nights i forget
and reach for where you used to be

i tried to love someone the way i loved you
but my hands remembered different skin
my mouth formed different names
everything felt like translation
like speaking a language i used to be fluent in
now i stumble over simple words
like "stay" and "mine" and "home"
the scar tissue makes me clumsy

they say the body remembers everything
every touch catalogued in nerve and bone
so i carry you in my marrow
in the space between my ribs
you're the phantom limb i learned to live without
but never stopped reaching for

this is the cicatrix
the mark you left when you split me open
this is the evidence
that i survived but didn't heal
i wear you like a second skin
the hurt you left still beautiful somehow
this is the cicatrix
and i wouldn't erase it even if i could

i dream about alternate endings
where i said the right words
where you stayed
where love was enough
but i wake up in this timeline
the one where you're a memory
and i'm the keeper of your ghost
learning to breathe underwater
learning to hold my breath forever

i don't want to heal
i don't want to forget the shape of you
i don't want the scar to fade
because then what proof do i have
that this was real
that you were real
that i loved you enough to break

i'll carry this forever
every mark, memory, every cut
this is my testament
the cicatrix is all i have left of us

so i trace the scar
and remember
i trace the scar
and breathe
i trace the scar
and survive another day

with you embedded in my skin
forever