​one day, we won’t exist

Song Meaning

The lyrics paint a picture of a relationship caught between a desire for comfortable permanence and the unsettling awareness of fleeting time. The opening lines, "Could we stay here forever?" repeated like a mantra, establish a yearning for an unchanging, cozy present, filled with simple domestic pleasures like "weekend mornings, black coffee" and dancing to "45's spinning." This idyllic vision, however, is immediately contrasted with the inevitable march of seasons, as "eternal summer" gives way to "early September" and "Autumn afternoons," suggesting that even the most cherished moments are transient. The central tension arises from this conflict between the desire to freeze time and the reality of its passage. The narrator expresses a deep-seated fear of loss, not just of the relationship itself ("I don't wanna lose you") but also of their own identity within it ("lose myself anymore"). This is coupled with a weariness of cyclical struggle, a "sick of starting over" feeling that permeates the verses. The imagery of "running out of air every year" and watching a "star drops" amplifies this sense of dwindling resources and inevitable decline, highlighting the pressure of time. One of the most striking aspects of the writing is how it uses the passage of time as a metaphor for emotional distance and decay. The shift from the warmth of "dancing in your kitchen" to the coldness of "Autumn afternoons came early September" is a subtle but powerful illustration of a relationship cooling. Later, the desire to "get away" and find "another place out of my head" suggests that the internal landscape is as much a source of conflict as the external circumstances. The repeated plea to "stay here forever" becomes less about a physical location and more about an emotional state that the narrator fears is slipping away. Ultimately, the effectiveness of these lyrics lies in their honest portrayal of a common human anxiety: the fear of impermanence in relationships and life itself. The narrator's vulnerability in admitting they don't want to "lose myself anymore" and their desperate wish to avoid a future where it's "too late to make amends" resonates because it captures the bittersweet ache of cherishing moments while knowing they cannot last. The song captures that specific dread of watching something precious fade, a feeling amplified by the simple, relatable domestic scenes that ground the existential worry.