Ink on My Hands

I found the attic key again
Where echoes wait in cardboard graves
A rusted typewriter sits in dust
Like it's still waiting to be brave
Your name's still in the ribbon reel
Faint, but sharp as shattered glass
I touch the keys, they creak like bones
And drag me through the past

I tried to hide the things I wrote
But silence never lets them go

Now I've got ink on my hands
From the ghosts I tried to send
Letters crumpled, never mailed
But the words still never end
I thought I left them far behind
But they stain me where I stand
Now I've got ink on my hands
And no one left to understand

I used to write you every night
But never found the nerve to seal
Each truth I typed, then tucked away
As if that made it less real
The floor still creaks the way it did
When I was someone you believed
Now every step I take up here
Is one more I can't leave

I tell myself it's just old ink
But it's deeper than I want to think

Now I've got ink on my hands
From the ghosts I tried to send
Letters crumpled, never mailed
But the words still never end
I thought I left them far behind
But they stain me where I stand
Now I've got ink on my hands
And no one left to understand

I whisper to the ceiling beams
Like maybe they remember things
The way you laughed, the way you cried
The night you said goodbye

So I've got ink on my hands
And the keys won't let me go
Each letter burns a little more
Each silence lets me know
I wasn't brave, I wasn't right
But I wrote you with both hands
Now I've got ink on my hands
And nowhere else to land