The Shape of Where It Used to Be

Production notes:

“Dark folk gospel, raw male baritone, opens with single acoustic guitar, no percussion until the final chorus, sparse production throughout, Appalachian minor feel, full gospel swell only at the end — organ, choir, bass — then strips back to one voice for the final three words, 66 BPM, cinematic and unhurried, emotional weight of early Sufjan Stevens meets Josh Garrels”

Hell ain’t the red man, hell ain’t the pit

It’s Tuesday morning reaching for a memory that quit

Not all at once — the way a photograph left in the sun

First the color, then the edges, then there’s nothing, then you’re done

I used to know the weight of her asleep against my chest

I used to know what coffee meant at 5 before the rest

I used to know the rain on tin when warmth was still a thing

Now warmth is just a word I heard

From someone, in a dream

There’s a room where love used to live

I can’t find the wall where the door was

There’s a laugh I can’t hear anymore

And a face I reached for and lost

The darkness ain’t Hollywood fire

It’s the silence where God was

It’s the shape of where it used to be

Before I knew what I had

The demons didn’t hate me — that’s the part that broke me clean

They used me like a napkin, threw me out without a scene

No anger in it, no contempt, just indifference all the way

Fire means someone notices you’re there

I wasn’t worth the flame

I was a shirt with every stitch undone, just hanging loose

I reached inside for something good and grabbed a fistful of no use

I reached for my mother’s face and caught a handful of air

The worst part wasn’t losing it

The worst part — it was never there

There’s a room where love used to live

I can’t find the wall where the door was

There’s a laugh I can’t hear anymore

And a face I reached for and lost

The darkness ain’t Hollywood fire

It’s the silence where God was

It’s the shape of where it used to be

Before I knew what I had

He was in the weight of her sleeping

He was in the 5 AM

He was in the rain on the tin roof

He was in all of it

I just didn’t know His name

(silence)

*[Turn — one line, sung alone, no choir yet]

Then a hand

In the dark

There’s a room where love came back in

I can hear the laugh through the doorway

There’s a face I can finally hold

There’s a warmth I can’t explain

It wasn’t gradual, wasn’t a sunrise

It was a wrist grabbed out of the dark

He said: I found you

He said: I was always the shape

of what you lost

before you knew what it was

And I could smell the coffee

And I could hear her laugh

And He said —

I found you

(nothing else)