Keep Me Around

You don't have to love me right
Just don't disappear tonight
I've gotten good at surviving
On half attention and tired replies

I learned how to read silence
Like another language entirely
Every delayed response
Every sorry, I was busy
Every version of almost

Keep me around
Even temporarily
Even if I'm just somewhere you go
When loneliness gets too loud

You leave slowly
Like winter leaving Wisconsin
Never fully gone
Always one cold night away from coming back

Sometimes I think
We stopped being happy a long time ago
But neither of us knew how to leave
Without losing a part of ourselves

So we keep circling each other
Like old songs
Like unfinished conversations
Like habits we mistake for love

Keep me around
Even if it hurts a little
Even if I already know
How this ends