Verse 1

Back in the schoolyard dust, under that old oak shade

Your laugh cut through the recess noise like sunlight through a blade

Pigtails and freckles, grace in every careless step

I didn't know forever yet, but I swore I'd never forget

Pre-Chorus

Heart too small to hold the weight

Of a promise I never spoke

Just watched you glow, untouchable

While the world stayed ordinary smoke

Chorus

And the echoes keep calling your name through the years

Soft as the wind through the fence at sixteen

I carried that light like a lantern in rain

Never knowing it was burning my skin

Till the flame turned to ash in my hands

Verse 2

Three decades of highways, army boots, and late-night drives

Your face in the rearview, fading but never quite gone from my eyes

I built you a throne out of daydreams and time

Polished it bright while my own life slipped by

Bridge

Then the screen lit up one quiet night

Same smile, same tilt of the head

But the pedestal cracked when your words hit the light

And the girl I'd worshipped was already wed

Chorus

Now the echoes are quieter, just whispers in dust

No more chasing that ghost through the rust

I finally see what I held all along

Was a beautiful lie I sang in my song

And the silence that follows feels strangely like love

Outro

(soft, fading banjo pluck over lingering synth pad)

So I walk this road empty-handed now

The halo's gone, but the dawn's breaking through

And maybe that's the sweetest sound of all

Letting the dream girl go... letting me go too