Air thick enough to drown while standing still. Something unseen adjusts the pressure. I perform for ghosts that never clap. [guitar scrape] Rocking out for nobody, still giving everything. Silence as my audience, I conduct it like a choir. Every string scrape measured, staged for the unseen. Streetlights hum like they’re paid to look away. And I swear the room is listening back. Sweet voices swear they’ll carry me home. “Re-define home.” Every word pre-approved. But the lifeline tightens like a hand on my throat. I can’t tell saviors from captors anymore. Comfort is the weight that pulls me under. (vocal crack) Comfort is the weight… Golden face appears. A clock where the third eye opens. Paperwork replaces the ransom note. Brown hands. Migrant hands. My hands. Turned into footage for someone else’s certainty. Badge where eyes should be. Clipboard where a heart was. Sweet voices still promise they’ll carry me home. But home keeps moving. [isolated foot-stomp] The lifeline tightens like a hand on my throat. I can’t tell saviors from captors anymore. Comfort is the weight that pulls me under. (Comfort is the weight…) The signal holds who I was. Barely. The room exhales permission. I keep playing. The ghosts never clap. [guitar feedback into silence]
