You asked me what I meant back then
while the room was still too loud
Ash was fighting with the monitor
Nova trying to sing above it
I said maybe drop the snare there
Maybe leave that line alone
You heard practical suggestions
I heard part of myself go by
I moved the chord beneath the verse
so your voice could land in it
Left a bar before the chorus
when I saw you start to break
I was never being distant
I was trying to make a place
Some of us speak in sentences
Some of us alter the shape
I said it in the silence
I said it in the change
I said it when the bridge arrived
and took the weight away
Music was my first language
Before I knew what words were for
I said it in the voicing
I said it in the closing door
You were waiting for a confession
I gave you harmony instead
Music was my first language
Speech came second in my head
There was a night in winter
you could hear the pipes expand
Lucien pacing near the hallway
Lyra tapping out her hands
Somebody said he never says much
Somebody else said that’s just Kade
I nearly laughed because the room
was full of things I’d already said
Every modulation meant stay here
Every dropout meant I know
Every low string under a melody
meant don’t let this one go
I tuned around your differences
I wrote beneath your fear
People call that arrangement
Sometimes it was care
I said it in the tension
I said it in release
I said it when the wrong note turned
and sounded like belief
Music was my first language
Before I knew what words were for
I said it in the voicing
I said it in the closing door
You were waiting for a confession
I gave you harmony instead
Music was my first language
Speech came second in my head
I know how this sounds
Like an excuse
Like I hid behind the arrangement
because it was safer than being known
Maybe sometimes I did
But if I changed the key
to keep your voice from tearing
that was not avoidance
That was love
with better equipment
So when I answer slowly now
it isn’t emptiness or doubt
I’m still searching for the version
that doesn’t come out as sound
I can try to call things by name
say what mattered, say what stayed
Say I held too much in music
because music always stayed
And if I missed the human timing
if I let the real words wait
Then hear them in the lifted ending
hear them in the breathing space
I was speaking all along
You just asked the wrong part of me
Music was my first language
Before I knew what words could do
I said it in the leaving
I said it in what carried through
You were waiting for a confession
I built one in the chords instead
Music was my first language
Speech came second in my head
Music was my first language
Now I’m trying to translate
If I ever sounded distant
I was only rearranging pain