[INTRO — cathedral room tone, distant chair creaks, slow inhale] Everyone lowered at once not sudden not commanded more like wind passing through wheat [soft shoe-step echo] head hands stone head hands stone and somehow the motion left... [VERSE 1 — restrained, observant] Hands behind my back white gloves folded inside one fist thumb pressed hard enough to feel the pulsed kiss The aisle stretched black with reflected light like watered oil like a river trying not to fight Someone coughed three pews behind Someone whispered “sit down” but softly softly enough to survive... [PRE-CHORUS — pressure gathering] I remember kneeling I remember learning when to lower my eyes when to become smaller than the architecture The body memorizes before the mind consents That is the genius of ritual, of this sense [CHORUS — immense, restrained percussion enters] And all around me the bodies bend timed like scripture timed like debt rows of shoulders falling clean like history practicing itself, again but I stood there thin as a nail hammered wrong through holy wood taught to not feel not to fail [POST-CHORUS — distant choir, recursive] head hands stone head hands stone the room kept moving without me prone [VERSE 2 — deeper psychological terrain] The cathedral smelled of wax wet wool rain trapped in limestone Centuries breathing through mortar cracks Every empire every funeral every frightened boy taught to call obedience peace still suspended in the dust The stained glass burned without warmth saints dissolving into geometry red through gold through smoke through names nobody says correctly anymore! [PRE-CHORUS — colder, more dangerous] No rebellion No anthem No grand refusal only a body failing to synchronize [CHORUS — heavier low-end, distant snare pulse] And all around me the bodies bent soft as wheat before the storm while I remained by some small defect a splinter left inside the pattern, worn And all around me the silence worked fitted itself between the pews until my standing started sounding louder than prayer itself, of the few [INSTRUMENTAL — organ bloom, choir widening, marching resonance] [VERSE 3 — realization turning existential] I thought discipline meant alignment I thought devotion would arrive eventually if repeated enough left foot right foot button the coat polish the shoes speak when spoken to be useful be useful be useful [a faint breath] unh... UNH! Architecture can hold a ruin upright for centuries That does not mean it is alive That... does not mean.... does not.... [BRIDGE — stripped nearly bare] Maybe faith is only synchronized longing Maybe prayer is practiced gravity Maybe everyone else heard something a voice a comfort a forgiveness I no longer could [BREAK — complete silence] … [CHANT — low male choir, recursive, almost militaristic] Lower lower Head hands stone Lower lower Become the Rome [FINAL CHORUS — catastrophic restraint, emotionally immense] And all around me the bodies bent stone and shadow flesh and habit every spine a practiced prayer every mouth closed out of fear while I remained caught in the aisle like the room forgot to bury me in the while And all around me the candles shook gold through dust through smoke through memory through every book while somewhere inside me a smaller version knelt and could not stand back up over-felt [OUTRO — fading organ, distant footsteps, choir dissolving] Everyone lowered at once and for one terrible moment I envied how easily they disappeared how easily... how.... how.... how.... how.... HOW! RAH!
