**"The Soundtrack of Our Collective Amnesia"** [Opening: Static, radio tuning between stations] Verse 1: We drive through suburbs built on things we won't discuss The playlist shuffles past the questions that would ruin us Your father's silences, my mother's pills The foreclosure notices we pretend aren't real Pre-Chorus: Turn it up, turn it up Until we can't hear ourselves think Turn it up, turn it up We're dancing on the brink Chorus: This is the soundtrack of our collective amnesia Playing loud enough to drown the screaming Bass drops where conversations should be We're seventeen and already disappearing Into the soundtrack of our collective amnesia (Can you hear me? Can you hear me?) Verse 2: Jessica curates our numbness into three-minute segments Tyler's hands shake in rhythm with the bass line's measurements Ashley writes "EVERYTHING IS FINE" in her chemistry notes While Mike turns up the volume on the bruises in his throat [Bridge - music cuts to just a heartbeat and whispered vocals] We know every word to every song Except the ones we need to say "Are you okay?" "I'm not okay" "Help me" "Stay" [Final Chorus - all instrumentation returns] This is the soundtrack of our collective amnesia We've memorized the void to keep from screaming Every beat a buried history We're seventeen and already disappearing Into static, into static, into static [Outro: Music fades to silence, then:] "Hey... can we turn the music off for a second?" [Sound of silence] "I need to tell you something..." [End]
