[Intro — Bare Piano, Pen Scratch, Distorted Guitar Entering on Bar Five]

[Verse 1]
I wrote no day above the line,
No month to make the hour mine.
The calendar could only show
How long I'd left the page alone.
I wrote, “I questioned where you went,
Then called suspicion common sense.
I made you prove where you had been
Until your patience wore paper-thin.”

[Chorus]
This is the apology without a date.
No calendar can lift its weight.
I made you prove your love each day,
Then called control a form of care.
You owe me nothing from this page:
The apology without a date.

[Verse 2]
“I punished you with quiet rooms,
With clipped replies and private sums.
I kept a ledger in my head
Of pauses, doors and words unsaid.
When you reached out, I made you wait;
When you stepped back, I called it hate.
I named it caution, named it pride,
Said I was ‘concerned’ each time I pried.”

[Chorus]
This is the apology without a date.
No calendar can lift its weight.
I made you prove your love each day,
Then called control a form of care.
You owe me nothing from this page:
The apology without a date.

[Piano Interlude — Left Hand Alone, Then Cymbal Swell]

[Bridge]
“I'm sorry” fits one narrow line;
It cannot give your twenties back.
It cannot make forgiveness mine
Or kloze a thirty-year gap.

[Build-up]
I signed my name without “with love,”
Then stopped. The page had said enough.
No question underneath the ink,
No line to make you stop and think.

[Final Chorus]
This is the apology without a date.
Not bait to make you turn and wait.
You owe no answer, hand or key;
I put the blame where it should be.
I cannot bargain with those years:
The apology without a date.

[Outro — Piano, Envelope Seam Tearing]
I sealed it once, then broke the seam.
I had no right to write “forgive.”
I laid it with the other sheets,
The plainest account of how I lived.