[INTRO | prepared piano, bowed cymbal, whispers L→R, sub pulse] Many. Incarnations. [vacuum cut → silence] [DROP | 7-string guitar, dissonant harmonics, cello col legno] [VERSE I | restrained female vocal → scream] I used to have a talent for diminishing myself, so someone else’s ego could have more oxygen. I knew the grammar of the lowered gaze, the conditional mood, the infinitive of dissent. They said I was easier to love when every “no” I spoke sounded like a question. [instruments decay → close whisper] But that version of me, meticulously innocent, died without a testament. I owe her no... [reverse inhale → full band] RESURRECTION. [PRE-CHORUS | nyckelharpa drone, polyrhythmic toms] A woman is not singular. She is an archipelago of conflicting republics. So don’t ask me which one is real. [everything cuts except drone] The real one is the one who is speaking... NOW. [CHORUS | huge melodic metalcore, clean + screamed doubles, cello counterline] I have a thousand incarnations, and none of them forever. I will not make myself smaller to make somebody comfortable. I have no time for romantic metaphysics, for excavating messages from a week ago. [gang vocal] THE WORLD HAS BIGGER QUESTIONS. [clean vocal] And I have a voice. [pitch dive → scream] I INTEND TO USE IT. [BREAKDOWN I | detuned guitars, metallic percussion, floor toms] I. [impact] WILL. [impact] NOT. SHRINK. [glitch whisper: “smaller… smaller… small…”] [VERSE II | bass groove, pizzicato cello, spoken-clean vocal] I’m done taking the temperature of punctuation, interpreting silence like sacred manuscripts. Was “goodnight” colder than usual? Did that period mean something? [sudden silence → prepared piano note] The empire is burning... [pause] and I’m supposed to analyze an emoji? [dissonant riff] I choose assemblies, streets and conversations, things that survive without a beauty filter. Freedom does not always smell of perfume. [nyckelharpa + cello rising] Sometimes it smells of printing ink, rain, and marker pens on protest signs. [CHORUS II | wide guitars, choir, clean + scream] I have a thousand incarnations, and none of them forever. I will not make myself smaller to make somebody comfortable. I have no time for romantic metaphysics, for endless exegesis of somebody else’s intentions. Love may come if it knows how to walk beside me. [half-time → silence] But I will not... LEAVE MY ROAD FOR IT. [BRIDGE | prepared piano, cello harmonics, intimate vocal] I do not renounce tenderness. [low choir] I renounce obedience. I do not renounce intimacy. [feedback rising] I renounce reduction. I do not renounce love. [complete silence] I merely relieve it of its position... [dry spoken voice] as minister of all my affairs. [FALSE DROP → silence] I still have... FREEDOM. [sub impact] ANGER. [choir + guitar] WORK TO BE DONE. [crushing half-time breakdown] And several injustices... [pick scrape] TO CALL BY THEIR NAMES. [BREAKDOWN II | dissonant 7-string riff + cello unison + metallic hits] [FINAL CHORUS | full choir, nyckelharpa, cello, clean/scream counterpoint] A woman has many incarnations. [scream] MANY! That is not inconsistency. THAT IS SOVEREIGNTY. That obedient little girl belongs to someone else’s mythology now. I will not mourn her. [chaos opens into sustained chords] I have too much present tense left to live. Too much of this world left to question. [OUTRO | detuned piano, cello harmonics, amplifier hum] And far too little time to spend another evening wondering... [long decay] why he didn’t text back. [silence → distant whisper] “I will not shrink.” [tape slowdown → abrupt cut]
