[Verse 1]
Eleven forty, ceiling painted blue and gray,
thumb doing laps like it's getting paid by the sway,
I said one more clip, that was three clips back,
now the window's showing dawn doing its own comeback.
Neck bent like a question mark nobody's asking,
coffee's cold, the cat gave up and started napping.
Didn't blink, didn't eat, didn't answer my phone —
ironic, since the phone's the reason I'm alone
in a canyon built of feed that never hits a floor,
no credits, no "the end," just a hallway with more doors.
Looked up and the clock laughed, said it's practically dawn,
three hours gone sideways while my torpor carried on —
that thick, slow fog where the mind just quits the room.
[Chorus]
Where'd the night go, where'd the hours lean,
swallowed whole by a glowing little screen.
Where'd the night go, I was right here,
just not present, just not here.
[Verse 2]
Here's the difference, plain as a kitchen clock:
a record's got a label side, a needle that'll stop,
an album's got a last song, a spine, a final page,
the feed's got none of that — it's built to never age.
So I started stealing structure back, one small trick,
opened up the Clock tab, set it, let it tick —
twenty minutes, spoken out the second that it's done,
no sneaking past the buzzer, no pretending it's still one.
Not a lecture, not a lock, just a voice that keeps its word,
"time's up," said plain and clear, the cleanest thing I've heard.
I picked the show, I picked the length, I let the ending land,
closed the loop myself instead of letting it expand.
[Bridge]
Still some nights the thumb forgets the plan we made,
still the scroll's a river and I wade in anyway.
No alarm erases how the pull still works on me,
just a little less lost than I used to let it be.
[Verse 3]
Morning comes in sideways, guilty like a confession,
I count the hours lost like they're some kind of lesson.
Friends keep asking what I did with my whole night,
I say "nothing," but the screen glow says otherwise.
The world outside kept turning, sun still rose on time,
while I was stuck rewinding somebody else's rhyme.
Now I leave the phone outside the bedroom door,
small rebellion against the current, nothing more.
It's not about the willpower, it's about the frame,
give the night an ending so it won't feel the same —
a story needs a stopping point to mean a thing at all,
even scrolling rivers crash against some kind of wall.
[Chorus]
Where'd the night go, where'd the hours lean,
swallowed whole by a glowing little screen.
Where'd the night go, I was right here,
just not present, just not here.
[Chorus]
Where'd the night go, where'd the hours lean,
swallowed whole by a glowing little screen.
Where'd the night go, I was right here,
just not present, just not here.