[INTRO | 8 bars | full-time | drums sparse, vinyl hiss, match-strike foley | swing 54%] [VERSE 1 | 16 bars | funky syncopation | full-time] I learned to siphon the quiet from static, capillary nights in a borrowed pallor. Your jacket smelled like varnish and panic, a matchbook choir in a winter squalor. Palimpsest hands without a callus, you wrote my name in a fog-slick mirror; every letter ran thin like isinglass, every promise a varnished error. My lungs did sums with your midnight habit, tiny embers doing carousel math. I swallowed smoke like a moth to fabric, watching your shadow redraw my path. And I—(half-word glitch, let it stutter clear)— stood at the frostline, tasting the year. [PRE / CLIMB | 8 bars | jazzy kit | halftime] You say “breathe slow,” I hear siphon, siphon; you say “don’t go,” I hear ballast break. Tongue like acetone—sweet, then silent— a paper communion I can’t un-take. [HOOK | 16 bars | breakbeat | perceived double-time hats] Filterless communion, I keep you near; my throat writes treaties your ash won’t hear. I used to get my nutrients through twice-distilled grains; now I get them from cigarettes and fear. Filterless communion, a votive smear; our breath trades secrets the night won’t clear. I used to get my nutrients through twice-distilled grains; now I get them from cigarettes and fear. (1-bar breath: drums mute, inhale foley) [POST / TURN | 1 bar | breath | 2/4 cut] Match-strike. Inhale. Back in. [VERSE 2 | 16 bars | hybrid | full-time] You keep a calendar taped to the vellum, x’s like sutures along the seam. We talk in threes: forgive, forget, seldom— carousel logic in a fever dream. Your laugh is brittle, a filament shutter; mine is a ghost in a ballast cage. We share a shiver of midnight stutter— coffee and ash on a communion page. Streetlight drizzle turns acetate silver, our shadows splice into one long smear; You say “it’s better,” the syllables quiver, I say “I’m fine,” but the fine’s not here. The matchbook opens—tiny red gears— and time clicks forward on capillary fears. [BRIDGE | 8 bars | pad-heavy | halftime] If hunger is a prayer, then light me, dear; let tinder answer what bread can’t bear. The matchbook whispers, “come volunteer,” I volunteer to the humming air. We are the smoke that we engineer— we are the ache of a chandelier. [FINAL HOOK | 20 bars | 4-on-the-floor | full-time] Filterless communion, I keep you near; my throat writes treaties your ash won’t hear. I used to get my nutrients through twice-distilled grains; now I get them from cigarettes and fear. Filterless communion, a votive smear; we ghost a future in varnished gear. I used to get my nutrients through twice-distilled grains; now I get them from cigarettes and fear. (Tag | last 4 bars, drop bass, widen pads) If hunger is a prayer, then light me, dear— I’ll find my vitamins past the mirror; one last strike on the matchbook’s leer, fade the smoke, leave the year. [OUTRO | 8 bars | ride then mute] Vinyl hiss, distant servo; last ember ticks out.
