Her Name in the Journal Before Mine (Jealous Love)

Lyrics

[Intro]
The second drawer on the left.
The one that always sticks.
Just a little.
And there it was.
Leather, brown, the clasp a little tarnished.
I didn't mean to look.
I swear I didn't.

[Verse 1]
It smells like dust and time.
And a faint, forgotten cologne.
The first page is dated April, 2019.
Before me.
The handwriting is a confident slope.
A man who knows what he wants to say.
He talks about the weather.
The price of coffee.
The way the light hit the buildings on Thames Street.
Small things.

[Chorus]
And then I saw it.
Page seven.
Her name.
Written in a different ink, almost.
Pressed harder into the paper.
Her name, before mine.
In the book of you, I'm just the chapter that comes after.
The footnote to the real story.

[Verse 2]
He writes about the time she spilled wine on the rug at The Alibi Room.
He called her his "little disaster."
He drew a clumsy, five-pointed star next to her name.
I trace it with my finger.
I keep turning pages, a sickness in my throat.
A strange kind of hunger.
Looking for the part where it ends.
Where I'm supposed to begin.

[Chorus]
And there it is again.
Page twenty-one.
Her name.
Written like a prayer, a promise.
Pressed so hard it bruised the other side.
Her name, before mine.
In the book of you, I'm just the chapter that comes after.
The footnote to the real story.

[Bridge]
He finally writes my name on page eighty-two.
The ink is steady. Calm.
There are no clumsy stars.
No stories about spilled wine.
Just the facts of my arrival.
And I realize I am not the love story.
I am the epilogue.
The quiet closing of a different door.

[Outro]
I close the cover.
The clasp clicks shut.
A sound like a lock turning.
I put the book back in the drawer that sticks.
The room is the same.
But the air is colder now.
So much colder.