[FX: old VHS CLICK • cassette rewind • grocery store PA system • shopping cart squeaks • microwave DING • crowd chatter • camera flash • record scratch] [FEMALE – spoken] [Tone: completely deadpan] (Mmmm) Hi. I’m Danielle. … Yeah… Good luck with that. (small laugh) (BEAT DROPS) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ (VERSE ONE) [FEMALE] Four-foot-ten with a mouth full of jokes, built like a warning wrapped up in smoke, half Italian blood with the Sunday sauce, arguing loudly like nobody lost. Clock in at six while the world’s still asleep, stacking my feelings where cold cuts keep, smile at customers, “Morning! You good?” Meanwhile my brain’s setting fire to the neighborhood. Got brown eyes, dark hair, caffeine? Nah. Running on sarcasm, tea and trauma. Got enough emotional baggage to claim its own damn zip code with my last name. If overthinking burned calories, I’d practically float, I’d disappear faster than my unpaid PTO. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ (PRE-CHORUS) [FX: deli slicer WHIRR • scanner BEEP • shopping cart rolls by] Everybody says… “Smile.” “Relax.” “You’re thinking too much.” … (Yo) Buddy… If my brain had a brake pedal… I’d have hit it around 2009. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ (CHORUS) Nice to meet me. Hope you’re free. Cause this ride ain’t got stability. One minute laughing… Next minute crying… Still somehow showing up and surviving. Nice to meet me. Pull up a chair. Don’t mind the emotional wear and tear. House is quiet… Brain is loud… Welcome to the world’s most functional breakdown. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ (VERSE TWO) [FX: fireworks POP • cat meow • keyboard typing • phone vibration • vinyl crackle] Love my cats more than half the planet, if they knock stuff down I probably planned it. Lost one soulmate wearing orange and white, still tell him goodnight almost every night. Now got kittens running tactical drills, treating my living room like combat hills. I say, “Come here.” They say… Absolutely not. Cool. I’ll just cry over there while you plot. Boyfriend cooks chicken… Mashed potatoes… Wine. Meanwhile anxiety’s throwing up on company time. Walked through the fear and I still walked in, sometimes courage looks nauseous as sin. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ (VERSE THREE) [FX: fluorescent lights • footsteps • bathroom fan • mirror HUM] Bathroom mirror knows every speech, every fake smile I had to teach. Manager walks by… Brain goes… “They’re talking.” Reality goes… “They literally asked where the mustard’s stocked.” Oops. (Dummy) My mistake. Again. Imagine that. Turns out not every conversation is secretly about me. Who knew? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ (BRIDGE) [FX: cassette slows • heartbeat • rain • deep inhale] People ask… “So… What are you like?” (Well) … (Sir) Imagine if a haunted house… Started paying taxes. That’s pretty close. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ (FINAL VERSE) [FX: orchestra hit • crowd cheering sarcastically • shopping scanner • cat purr • thunder rolling away] I’m stubborn enough to outlive my doubt, I’ve been counted out and still counted myself. Got scars that don’t show, stories that sting, still finding reasons to laugh at everything. I’ll make dumb jokes in the middle of grief, quote horror movies for comic relief. Cry in the shower… Clock in by six… Because apparently that’s one of my tricks. Call me emotional… Fair. Call me dramatic… Fine. But don’t confuse surviving with wasting my time. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ (FINAL CHORUS) Nice to meet me. This is the deal. Half sarcastic… Half trying to heal. House gets quiet… Music gets loud… Somehow I still stand out in the crowd. Nice to meet me. Here’s the truth. Still carrying pieces from my youth. Still got hope… Despite the cracks… And if life swings first… … I usually swing back. 🎤 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ (OUTRO) [FX: grocery store PA chime • cassette EJECT • cat purr • shopping cart rolling away] [FEMALE – spoken] [Tone: amused] Anyway… (hi) I’m Danielle. … Please return your shopping carts to the designated area… And your emotional baggage… Can stay. (tiny laugh) [FX: cassette CLICK • silence.]
