Verse 1 The ledger lay in iron thread (A) With centuries of careful red (A) Where patient scholars’ names were spread (A) Across a darker page The ink had bled through parchment thin (A) Where trembling hands had written in (A) A record no one else had seen (A) Of reason turned to cage Verse 2 Each footnote marked a vanished name (A) A mind consumed by seeking flame (A) A scholar lost within the same (A) Experiment of thought A margin scar beneath the line (A) Recorded where their minds decline (A) The cost of crossing reason’s sign (A) The truths their daring bought Pre-Chorus The candles flickered in their rings Like witnesses to ruined things And every page the ledger brings Was one more silent crime Chorus Footnotes in blood Written where reason broke Every brilliant question Ended in crimson smoke Footnotes in blood Margins carved in red Every daring scholar Counted with the dead Verse 3 The diagrams of fractured will (A) The careful notes of minds made still (A) The measured steps that led until (A) The subject disappeared Each trial logged with scholar’s grace (A) A date, a time, a borrowed face (A) As if the horror left no trace (A) Beyond what they revered Verse 4 And in the newest trembling hand (A) A name I knew began to stand (A) Your script beside the final plan (A) A thesis yet untried The candle guttered as I read (A) The place where living minds must tread (A) To test the boundary thought has fled (A) Where brighter scholars died Bridge You said the truth requires proof Beyond the lecture hall and roof That theories rot if left alone Untried in flesh and bone But every word the ledger kept Was one more mind the darkness swept Final Chorus Footnotes in blood Scholars carved in ink Every brilliant question Standing on the brink Footnotes in blood Truth no mind survives Every careful answer Measured out in lives
