SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY

Intro — piano + voice, the fear whispering] (whispered) One day… she's gonna leave me. One day… she's gonna leave me. (that's all my fear ever said.) [Verse 1 — emo ballad, sung, intimate] Every night I held her like the last one, counted every exit in her eyes. Loved her like a man who's bracing for the gun — swore the forever, but I rehearsed goodbye. The fear had a voice and it never let me sleep: "one day she's gonna leave you — one day — just wait and see." So I held a little tighter… and the tighter that I'd cling, the further that she drifted. God, I felt the loosening. [Pre-Chorus — build] And the day she finally left, she looked at me — and named the very thing my fear had whispered me to be… [HOOK — pop, big, earworm] "It's a self-fulfilling prophecy." It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. The fear I fed became the thing I feared — I built the door she walked out, year by year. "One day she's gonna leave me…" (she did.) A self-fulfilling prophecy. [Verse 2 — nu-metal rap, half-time, hard] Distancer and pursuer — that's the dance: I chase, she backs away, I never had a chance, 'cause the chasing was the chasing-off, the love was a demand — "don't leave me" screamed so loud it pushed her off the land. Nervous system runnin' code from the age of three: everybody leaves, so love 'em desperately — clutch it, crush it, smother what you can't control, called it covenant — but it's a fist around a soul. Religious commitment, I swore it 'fore the Lord, "till death" — I meant it, signed it, sealed it, stored — but a vow on a wound don't heal the wound beneath: I married her my savior… and I starved her underneath. [HOOK] "It's a self-fulfilling prophecy." It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. The fear I fed became the thing I feared — I built the door she walked out, year by year. [Bridge — strip to nothing, then lift. The thesis. No rescue.] (quiet, breaking) My heart saw forever. My nervous system was trauma bonded. I called it love — and maybe it was — but love and a trauma bond felt the same in my blood. (building) I can see the loop now — see the wire, see the spark — the prophet and the prophecy were always in the dark… (naming, not escaping) I know how I built it. I still don't know how to be a man who isn't bracing for you to leave me. [Final Hook — ends inside the loop] "It's a self-fulfilling prophecy." It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. "One day she's gonna leave me…" (she did.) …and the fear was right. (quiet) The fear was always right. [Outro — whispered, piano fades] One day… she's gonna leave me. (she's gone.) Self-fulfilling prophecy.