before I knew your voice

Verse 1 — close, almost spoken
I knew your name before I knew your voice,
knew where the line was drawn before I had a choice.
So for a year we lived on opposite sides,
two almost-strangers with nowhere to hide.
Then somehow talking turned to staying up late,
and every small thing started carrying weight.
The first time your fingers folded into mine,
I remember thinking, don't let go this time.
I didn't fall when I finally understood.
I looked down and realized I already had.
And somehow the one place I shouldn't have stood
was the first place I'd ever felt that glad.
Pre-Chorus — tension begins
Because when you touched me,
everything in me went quiet.
Like my head had been a crowded room
and you knew how to empty it.
Chorus — opens wide
You feel like home
and I can't go home to you.
That's the cruelest kind of heaven
I've ever made it through.
I'd choose you knowing everything,
every mile, every consequence.
If loving you costs all of this,
I'd still do it all again.
'Cause I still love you.
God, I still do.
I found home—
and I can't go home to you.
Verse 2 — more movement, more specific
You touched the little wound inside my arm
half-asleep like even dreaming you'd keep me from harm.
And I watched your breathing, scared to even move,
'cause I've never known peace the way I knew it with you.
We stole seconds when nobody could see,
your hand finding mine like it remembered me.
And when we kissed, every clock in the room
could've stopped forever—I wouldn't have moved.
Then everything broke exactly like they said.
No calls. No messages. Just you in my head.
But somehow after everything we'd done,
we found our way back to the same forbidden touch.
You said, "This shouldn't be a thing,"
but the night didn't know how to listen.
Neither did our hands.
Neither did the distance coming.
Pre-Chorus 2 — building
Now every time something happens
you're still the first person I want to tell.
My hand reaches for a phone
that can't take me where you are.
And there's two hundred seventy-five miles
between where I sleep and where home is.
Chorus — larger
You feel like home
and I can't go home to you.
That's the cruelest kind of heaven—
to find it, then lose the route.
I'd choose you knowing everything,
every mile, every consequence.
If loving you costs all of this,
I'd still do it all again.
'Cause I still love you.
I still choose you.
I found home—
and I can't go home to you.
Bridge — instrumentation falls away
We talked about a house someday.
Nothing perfect.
Just ours.
A place where our kids never have to wonder
if they're wanted when they walk through the door.
Where we give them all the things
we learned to live without.
And maybe that's what hurts the most.
I wasn't dreaming about forever
until forever started looking like you.
silence
So if you ever say,
"Come live the life we talked about,"
you won't have to ask me twice.
I already know what I'd leave behind.
Final Chorus — full cinematic release
You are my home
even if I never make it to you.
My beautiful, impossible heaven,
the one thing I would still choose.
Let the miles take all our mornings.
Let the years do what they do.
They can take my hand out of your hand—
they can't make me wish I never held you.
And if loving you costs everything,
then at least I'll know what everything meant.
I'd rather carry every happy memory
than live like none of this happened.
I still love you.
I still choose you.
After everything—
I still choose you.
Outro — back to almost nothing
The first time I held your hand,
I thought, please don't let this end.
Funny.
Two hundred seventy-five miles later,
my hand still remembers
exactly where yours went.