[Intro:] **[Pure instrumental - Sparse lone ambient acoustic guitar, e-bow drone beneath, long silence between phrases:]** [Verse 1:] **[Isolated Vocal, Fragile:]** A weightless ash falls through the floorboards high, Where saints in plaster crack and bleed to stone. Beneath the altar, where the spiders spin, I carve a hollow cell and sit alone. **[—Total instrumental dropout, silence —:]** [Verse 2:] **[Vocal Returns, Doom Guitar Begins to Bleed In:]** The winter trees are stirring in the dark, Their black roots clawing through the foundation wall. They whisper of a vast and fallen sky, How the heavy snows erase it all. [Refrain I:] **[Emotional Anchor, Choral Stack:]** This hollow soul is but a freezing skin, A thin partition warped by damp and mold. This hollow soul is but a freezing skin— It separates the pulse of life from cold. **[—Floor toms enter, slow & deliberate —:]** **[—Doom guitar riff layers in, building —:]** [Verse 3:] **[Crescendo, Full Weight Enters:]** The spirits speak in scraping iron tones, They crowd the threshold, breathing on the glass. They have no names, just aches that never die, And shadows that refuse to let me pass. [Crescendo Break - Wall of Sound:] **[Pure instrumental - doom guitars slide into crushing wall, cello + violin weeping beneath, drums hit hard & space out - then CUT OUT to near silence:]** [Verse 4:] **[Stripped Back, Vocal Alone:]** My heart is bleeding out in secret pools, A dark, redundant tide upon the clay. It hungers for a bond that outlasts dust, To bind eternity and march away. [Refrain II:] **[Return, Heavier, Layered Harmonies:]** This hollow soul is but a freezing skin, A thin partition warped by damp and mold. This hollow soul is but a freezing skin— It separates the pulse of life from cold. [Final Verse:] **[Full Doom Integration:]** But I am wedded to this basement frost, An isolate beneath the heavy nave. The barrier is thin, yet miles deep— A living ghost trapped in a singing cave. **[—Final crescendo - massed choral vocals, cello, distorted guitar wall, distant cymbals swelling —:]** [Outro - Dissipation:] **[Pure instrumental - distortion slowly fades, guitar wall thins to lone acoustic pluck, e-bow drone lingers, return to stark quiet - mirrors intro:]** **[Spoken/breathed, barely audible, echoing into silence:]** “...a singing cave...”
