[Verse 1] I found you where the tide leaves bottles, blue-green teeth in a bed of foam. The years had worried every corner, made a jewel of what was thrown. I held you up against the morning, called the old damage beautiful. Then your edge entered my finger— bright blood, immediate, undeniable. [Verse 2] We read the wars in borrowed bindings, admire the names, the dates, the smoke. We praise the maps for their composition, close the page when the sirens spoke. History wears a softened jacket, stitched with gold along the spine. But the present has a jagged mouth, and it is speaking yours and mine. [Chorus] Time, do not polish this for me! Do not turn the wound into a frame! You make a museum of the burning, then ask why I still say the name. Time, I know your patient fingers, I know what distance makes of pain— but this is glass beneath my skin, and I am bleeding in the rain. [Verse 3] The shore keeps every little secret, under salt and flattened light. A helmet, a button, a child's ribbon, all made harmless by the night. I wanted beauty to absolve us, let the years take what they can. But every smooth thing hides a splinter, and every century has hands. [Bridge] [Piano and voice] If I call it art, will it stop happening? If I call it then, will it leave today? If I make a story out of someone, can I look away? No—leave the edge upon my palm. Let it hurt where I can see. I would rather carry something broken than call it history. [Final Chorus] Time, do not polish this for me! I will not bless the blade with age! You can make a monument from ashes, but you cannot make me turn the page. Time, I hear the old applause now— all the beautiful dead arranged— while the living cut their hands on glass, and we congratulate the pain! [Outro] I found you where the tide leaves bottles... I held you... I— [silence]
