Text Me When You're Home

First night, your cab was waiting, and you didn't want to go,
you leaned out of the window like there's something I should know.
I waited for the big three words, the movie-ending kind,
you said, "Text me when you're home," and it rearranged my mind.
Now it's two years and a thousand rides, a thousand "are you back?",
a thousand little "home" texts, and I've never once lost track.

'Cause some people say it loud,
some people need a crowd,
but you and me, we've always known
the way you say it is "text me when you're home".

We never said "I love you",
we said "text me when you're home",
and every "yeah, I made it"
meant "you'll never be alone".
'Cause love's not always fireworks,
sometimes it's just a phone,
lit up on the nightstand,
saying "I'm home".

Your mom asked when I'm proposing, and you laughed into your tea,
you said, "He already did, he just said it differently."
I've saved eight hundred "home"s from you, in bubbles gray and blue,
eight hundred tiny promises, and every one came true.
And on the nights you're out too late, I'm staring at my phone,
I don't need you to need me, I just need to know you're home.

'Cause some people say it loud,
some people need a crowd,
but you and me, we've always known
the way you say it is "text me when you're home".

We never said "I love you",
we said "text me when you're home",
and every "yeah, I made it"
meant "you'll never be alone".
'Cause love's not always fireworks,
or candles, or a song,
sometimes it's just one word, "home",
and that's where we belong.

So tonight I'm breaking our rule, I'm saying it out loud,
three words I never needed, but I need them now:
I love you. There, I said it. And you're laughing on the phone,
you say, "I know, you idiot. Now come home."

We never said "I love you",
we said "text me when you're home",
and every "yeah, I made it"
meant "you'll never be alone".
And when we're old and gray and slow,
and one of us is on our own,
I'll still be waiting up for you
to text me that you're home.

Text me when you're home...
I'm home.