She Said Everything You Never Did (Book Love)

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
I am on page 342 again
which is the page where she says
the thing about forgiveness
that I have underlined
in three different colors
across three different readings
because each time I arrived
I was a different woman
needing a different word
from the same sentence

The first time I underlined in pencil
because I was not sure
The second time in blue
because I was certain
The third time in red
because I was angry
that a fictional woman
could say what no living person
has managed

[Verse 2]
My medial prefrontal cortex
does not distinguish
between her and the woman
at the boulangerie
Both are faces my brain has filed
under people I know
One of them sells me bread
The other sold me
a way of thinking about forgiveness
that I have carried
for six years
and the bread goes stale by Thursday
and the sentence
has not aged
a single morning

I know she is not real
My brain does not care
The neural signature
of a character I love
is identical
to the neural signature
of a friend
and I have fewer friends
than I have bookmarks
and the bookmarks
have never cancelled dinner

[Pre-Chorus]
Some people keep photographs
I keep page numbers
Page 342
Page 117
Page 29 where she arrives
for the first time
and the novel opens
like a door you did not know
was a door
until she walked through it

[Chorus]
She said everything you never did
She said it on page 342
in a typeface that does not care
if I am crying
and the margins are wide enough
to hold
what I wrote back
which is the loneliest
and most honest conversation
I have ever had

I am in love
with a woman made of ink
who lives in a city
that does not appear on any map
who speaks in a voice
I have built entirely
from punctuation
and font weight
and the spaces
between the words
where I inserted
my own breathing

[Verse 3]
My shelf is a relationship history
Some books I have broken up with
gently
returning them to the used store
on Rue de Charonne
with the particular guilt
of someone
who gave a good thing
an insufficient chance

Some I return to
every November
like a seasonal lover
who is only right
when it rains

And one
I will never finish
I have forty pages left
and I have had forty pages left
for two years
because finishing it
would end the only relationship
where I have never been
disappointed
and I would rather live
in the almost-ending
than arrive at a conclusion
that might not deserve her

[Bridge — clarinet enters]
The default mode network
the part of my brain
that wanders when I am still
replays her scenes
the way it replays real ones
Tuesday morning in the shower
I heard her say the thing
about forgiveness
and my hands stopped moving
and the water kept going
and for a moment
I was in her city
which does not exist
and she was in my bathroom
which does
and neither of us
found this unusual

This is what books do
They give you a second life
that runs parallel
and the parallel life
does not require
your credentials
or your steady hands
or your name
on a journal
It requires only
that you keep the page open
and agree
to be addressed

[Final Chorus]
She said everything you never did
and I loved her for the saying
and I loved the typeface
and the margins
and the weight of the book
in my hands at midnight
which is the weight
of someone
who is always there
who never leaves
who says the thing about forgiveness
every time I arrive at 342
as though I have never
heard it before
as though the sentence
is meeting me
for the first time
every time

And my shelf is full
and my margins are full
and my bookmarks
are the most permanent relationships
I have
and I am not embarrassed
I am accompanied
by women and men
who never lived
and who have loved me
better
than some who did