[Verse 1]
Four-fifteen and the parking lot's already navy blue,
streetlamp hums on before I've even clocked out, right on cue.
Signing off my timesheet while the sky's already done,
my body thinks it's bedtime and it hasn't seen the sun
since the drive in this morning, maybe not even then —
windshield fogged with frost, wipers going at nine a.m.
Everybody's coat's zipped up to the chin,
I'm microwaving dinner and the day just caved right in.
My mood's got a thermostat and someone turned it low,
wired to a dimmer switch I didn't ask to know.
It's not sadness exactly, it's more like a slow leak,
air going out the tire by the start of every week.
[Chorus]
When the dark comes down at four, I go quiet, I go small —
it isn't nothing, it's just winter, that's all.
When the dark comes down at four, I go quiet, I go small —
it isn't nothing, it's just winter, that's all.
[Verse 2]
So I started stepping out at noon, not for a cause,
just ten minutes facing east, let the cold bite my jaw.
Checked the morning update before I checked my mail —
it just names the weather plain, no sunshine for sale,
"overcast, high of forty," nothing dressed as cheer,
just the truth about the sky so I know where I stand this year.
The map keeps its own sunset, ticking with the real one,
dusk creeps over the pin where I live when the day's done.
Found a holiday tucked into the shortest week,
built by folks who dreaded this exact same bleak —
candles lit for no reason except the reason's clear:
somebody, long ago, needed light right here.
Turns out the shortest day still ends, still has a seam,
I started treating four p.m. less like a verdict, more a scene.
[Verse 3]
I keep a jar of citrus peel beside the window sill,
zest and sunlight in a bottle for the days the sky stands still.
My plants lean hard toward the one bulb that still burns,
and I lean too, taking patience in my turns.
March is just a rumor whispered under all this frost,
but I've done this math before — I know what isn't lost.
[Bridge]
Some mornings the coffee doesn't do a thing,
and the lamp on my desk can't fake me a spring.
I'm not cured, I'm just better at waiting it out,
counting back the minutes the light will add, no doubt.
The ache doesn't leave just because I name it right,
I'm only learning how to sit with early night.
[Chorus]
When the dark comes down at four, I go quiet, I go small —
it isn't nothing, it's just winter, that's all.
When the dark comes down at four, I go quiet, I go small —
it isn't nothing, it's just winter, that's all.
[Chorus]
When the dark comes down at four, I go quiet, I go small —
it isn't nothing, it's just winter, that's all.
When the dark comes down at four, I go quiet, I go small —
it isn't nothing, it's just winter, that's all.