Your Name on the Quilt

Your Name on the Quilt

A pride song · Songbond

0:003:47

A song written from a true story

The story & lyrics

The story behind this song

The apartment cleared out in April, the records still alphabetized the way he liked, the chair by the window angled toward the light where he got thin. A mug with a chipped handle that couldn't be washed clean of him. A phone number a thumb won't delete. He should be here arguing about this song — not becoming a name to be learned and kept. At twenty-five there were more funerals than weddings, a whole generation laid out across a field of stitched panels, every square a kitchen, a laugh, an ordinary Tuesday.

No "better place" here; he should be in this one. The only comfort that holds is the needle: his name sewn loud into the quilt by the hands that loved him, so the world keeps saying it. If you can't keep the body, you keep the name.

For the friend whose name we stitch, and say out loud, and refuse to lose.

Lyrics

I cleared the apartment out in April,
your records still in the order you liked.

The chair by the window's still angled
toward the light where you got thin.
I kept the mug with the chip on the handle,
couldn't wash the last of you off the rim.
Your number's still saved in my old phone —
I can't make my thumb hit delete.
You should be here arguing this song with me,
not a name I'm learning to keep.

I won't say you're in a better place —
you should be here, in this one, with me —

so I'm sewing your name on the quilt.
Every letter by hand, every stitch a year
I don't get to spend with you here.
If I can't keep your body, my friend,
I'll keep your name on the quilt.

We were twenty-five going to funerals
more than we ever went to a wedding or a fair.
I learned the walk to the hospice hallway,
learned which nurse would actually care.
They tried to bury you quiet, unnamed,
leave you off of the family stone —
so I'm stitching you loud into fabric,
so you're never, ever unknown.

I won't say you're in a better place —
you should be here, in this one, with me —

so I'm sewing your name on the quilt.
Every letter by hand, every stitch a year
I don't get to spend with you here.
If I can't keep your body, my friend,
I'll keep your name on the quilt.

There's a whole field of these panels now,
a generation laid out on the ground —
every square a kitchen, a laugh, a Tuesday,
a person somebody can't put down.
So many empty chairs by so many windows.
So I say the names out loud.
I say the names out loud.

And I'm sewing your name on the quilt.
Every letter by hand, every stitch a year
I don't get to spend with you here.
If I can't keep your body, my friend,
I'll keep your name on the quilt.

Your records, your chair, your chipped-handle mug.
Your name in my hands. Your name. Enough.

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