Forgave Myself in Real Time

Lyrics

No ground here. A silver spine of stacked balconies. A city called 'Used to Be'. The air tastes like radiator steam and static.

Flying between the floors, a ghost in my own history. Apartment 4B stacked on 11C. The door with the scratch from the dog named Wednesday is just above the window where I watched the snow fall. Every brick is a memory. I glide past a balcony where the railings are pages from a diary I burned, the text still legible in the moonlight that isn't a moon.

Every window a mirror to a different year. Each pane of glass holds a self I was. Their faces turn and watch me float by. This is a library of regret, indexed by address. I have the key. I choose one. I step through. Forgave myself in real time.

There you are, ten years younger. You look up from a phone that doesn't exist yet. Right at me. Your eyes are my eyes. I count the windows on this floor, there are thirteen. I look away, look back, seventeen. The numbers don't hold. The building breathes. I am watching you, and you are dreaming me.

I choose the window with the crack shaped like a question. My hand meets the glass and it ripples. The self inside mouths my name. I bite my hand to check, the reflection bites its hand back. The pain is silver, and wrong.

Every window a mirror to a different year. Each pane of glass holds a self I was. Their faces turn and wait for me now. This isn't a library of regret, it's a foundation. I have the key. I choose this. I step through. Forgave myself in real time.

The glass dissolves. The room smells of old books and rain. The younger me just nods. We don't speak. The city outside hums a new note. And forgiveness feels like gravity returning. Just for a moment.