[Opening | low cello figure | distorted bass | abrupt full-band entrance | no vocals] [Movement I: The Forecast | smoky male clean lead | controlled bitterness] I’ve won the argument in traffic twice, Found better words beside the freezer aisle. Each version makes you stop and pay the price; I almost get to keep it for a mile. The actual ending barely raised a sound. You set your glass beside the sink and spoke. I keep supplying thunder to the ground Where nothing but a quiet sentence broke. [Heavy half-time groove | guitar accents lean ahead of the beat] Your name appears beneath a mutual friend. A photograph, some ordinary view. I make the cloud above my head descend Until the whole location looks like you. [Movement II: Rehearsal | broad dark male melody | harmonized distorted guitars] I have a speech for when you ask me back, Another if you never ask at all. I know which line should make your breathing crack; I’ve measured every pause before the fall. Someone new is telling me a joke. I miss the middle, laugh a second late. Their question cuts across the words you spoke; I make a stranger stand outside and wait. [Harsh male vocal | driving percussion] You should have seen what leaving did. I want it dragged from where it’s hid. I want your easy days disturbed. I want the last, unanswerable word. [Instrumental passage | approximately 55 seconds | no voices] [Descending cello figure becomes a harmonized guitar lead] [Dragging bass groove beneath increasingly active drums] [Dissonant guitar counterlines | controlled double-kick bursts] [Heavy melodic peak] [Sudden reduction to bass and sustained distortion] [Movement III: The Cost | exposed male clean lead] They ask if I am listening. I nod. Then ask them something they’ve already said. I’ve made your absence into something odd: An extra person everyone must tread Around whenever conversation nears A place I haven’t finished blaming yet. I keep you current, adding borrowed years To something you may barely recollect. [Brief low male guttural couplet] “You don’t get every fucking room. I’ve given enough air to this gloom.” [Return to restrained male clean lead | full band returns] I leave the next imagined answer bare. The urge to finish scratches at my jaw. I ask the person with me what they’d share About the place they visited before. They start again. I let the details stay. Your face still flickers, briefly, out of frame. There isn’t any pardon here today, But this whole hour doesn’t bear your name. [Instrumental coda | no voices] [Competing guitar phrases settle over the persistent groove] [Dark minor cadence | natural decay | definite stop]
