[ONE adult female contralto. Spoken only. Low, close, dry, nearly monotone. Quiet and lucid. No sadness performed. No pleading, fragility, poetry-recital cadence or dramatic emphasis. Treat strange and disturbing statements as ordinary observations. Pauses are empty rather than dramatic. Dry understatement on “cheaper,” “Funny,” and “There.” Do not sing.] It feels impossible to get the words out even to find the words the... It's so heavy it moves through my veins like liquid charcoal The kind they give you in a milkshake when you've swallowed too many pills and didn't keep it a secret I can't feel anything inside my face Nah, that's not a stoic stare that's— well not shock not the kind where somebody walks around after a car crash with glass in their eyes Self-analgesia. A defensive shutdown an internal chemical cascade Endogenous opioids. same as exogenous cheaper timbre rhythm structure frequency are controllable again no again There. Words won't line up so I work with things that will. Funny. The things you can control become very interesting when you can't control the thing that controls you So— move that. remove this. again. It's not the job of the music to make me feel better. It has one job. Tell the truth.
