Floater

I learned to talk without taking up space

Learned how to smile with a straight face

I used to rehearse what I’d say in the mirror

Now I talk too much when the coast is clear

I’m not afraid, I just don’t need to speak

I know everybody, but nobody knows me

I can make a stranger feel less like a ghost

Funny how I disappear when I need it most

There’s always a seat that I’m saving for someone

There’s never a seat when the evening is done

I know all the exits, the birthdays, the names

But somehow I’m always a guest at the place

They like me better when I’m out of focus

Pretty little picture until I start to notice

Their faces change when the punchline gets louder

Guess I wasn’t supposed to have a personality after all

I’m the extra in somebody’s anniversary

The girl in the back of somebody’s memory

I’ve been in so many pictures I can’t find a home

I’m everybody’s person when nobody’s home

And my lover sleeps with their back to the ceiling

I memorize silence like it’s a new feeling

We’re close enough to share the same weather

But somehow still standing in two different Decembers

I wanna go where nobody knows me

Not somewhere new, just somewhere lonely

Where I don’t have to make myself smaller

Or laugh a little harder to make things softer

I wanna be happy in an empty room

Make a whole life out of afternoon

And if nobody calls, let the phone stay dead

I wanna be the first person I choose instead

My mother knows the color of my bedroom

But not what keeps me awake in it

She can tell you what I wore in seventh grade

But not the last time I felt safe

She’s always there, that’s the strangest part

A full house with an unoccupied heart

I got so good at not needing a mother

I almost forgot I was supposed to have one

My father was a number I could memorize

I learned to dial before I learned to ride

He never had to leave, he was already gone

I was just a little girl keeping the connection on

I wonder if he ever checked the weather

In the town where his daughter grew up

Or if I was just another missed call

He didn’t think was worth picking up

I wanna go where nobody knows me

Not somewhere new, just somewhere lonely

Where I don’t have to make myself smaller

Or laugh a little harder to make things softer

I wanna be happy in an empty room

Make a whole life out of afternoon

And if nobody calls, let the phone stay dead

I wanna be the first person I choose instead

I used to think that being picked meant something

Like a name called out in a crowded room

But I’ve been everybody’s second option

And still made sure they had somebody to go home to

I keep a light on for people who leave

Like the porch is gonna change what they believe

I know the way home, I just don’t go

There’s something embarrassing about wanting to be wanted so much

And maybe I’m not hard to love

Maybe I’m just easy to overlook

Maybe I keep calling it independence

Because abandonment sounds so ugly in a song

So I’ll buy a houseplant, give it a name

Let it die and try again anyway

I’ll take myself out, I’ll learn every street

I’ll stop saving the passenger seat

And when the world ends, I’ll probably be laughing

Making a joke while the buildings are collapsing

I’ll wave at the sky like an old friend passing

And wonder why I spent my whole life asking

If there’s somewhere I belong

I was here the whole time.