[Vocal arrangement: four voice layered quartet continuous legato singing no gaps between phrases soprano alto tenor baritone stacked in close harmony expanding to wide intervals on choruses sublayered resonant stacks voices treated as sustained instruments not percussive elements] [Intro - long instrumental breathe 16 bars] [Verse 1] ((layered quartet harmonics soprano and alto weaving above tenor and baritone foundation all voices sustained legato no breaks between phrases)) Hold me where the hours collect along the spine and at the neck where time has pressed its fingerprint so deep the bone remembers yet every second leaves a weight a calcium deposit fate a slow geology of days compressed in cartilage and vein [Chorus] ((all four voices converge unison then split into expanding harmonic intervals each voice drifting further from center pitch)) We were heavy once we were full of iron and years heavy with the salt of keeping heavy with the mass of here and time was touching us the way a river touches stone not breaking just removing what we thought was bone [Verse 2] ((tenor lead other voices hum sustained chords beneath shifting vowel shapes ooo to aaa to eee slow rotation)) I felt the leaving start so small a frequency beneath the skin a charge that flickered at the wall of every cell I carried in one electron wide the door between the staying and the drift between the body and the floor between the anchor and the lift [Post-Chorus] ((voices stack in rising fifths building slow tower of sound)) Lighter now lighter by a single charge lighter by the smallest thing that anything can lose and still change [Bridge - extended instrumental 8 bars kalimba and bowed saw only] [Verse 3] ((full quartet interlocking counterpoint each voice carrying a different melodic line that resolves together every fourth bar)) The clock was never counting down the clock was slowly lifting up removing gram by invisible gram the heaviness of blood and dust until the body is a bell still shaped but emptied of its tongue still here but ringing somewhere else a song the air has just begun [Chorus] ((expanded harmonics wider intervals voices barely holding the same key gorgeous tension between resolution and drift)) We were heavy once we were full of copper and time heavy with the need of holding heavy with the act of mine and time was touching us the way that light can touch a leaf not tearing just releasing what was underneath [Outro] ((voices thin one by one soprano drops away then alto then tenor until only baritone holds a single note fading over 8 bars into resonance and silence)) One electron and the grip releases one electron and the weight believes us one electron and the body floats
