The Jester's Mask

[Intro – haunting, whispered, clean female vocal] You spoke the ending like a prayer, and opened the door to the cold. [Verse 1 – restrained, trembling, melodic clean vocal] A smile bloomed on my face like frost on a grave, as I watched the world fall to dust, as I watched the last light drown in my chest and leave only ash and rust. [Pre-Chorus – building tension] My body bowed, a statue in the storm, but my soul bled where no one could see. [Chorus – soaring, powerful clean vocal with layered harmonies] I wear the masquerade of ruin, a jester draped in black, a broken spirit in borrowed colors, a beast with no heart to hold it back. [Scream, raw and desperate] I SMILE FOR THE CROWD, BURYING MYSELF ALIVE! [Verse 2 – softer, bitter, controlled] They find me the same as yesterday, a smile forged cold from stone. The lie became my crown of thorns, the only throne I've known. [Pre-Chorus – building tension] Behind the paint, a clown is weeping, and the laughter is a funeral song. [Bridge – sparse piano, tearful, trembling female vocal, voice breaking, slow and fragile] Some nights I almost let it fall, let the colors run like rain, let the footlights find me shaking and call my sorrow by its name. But the curtain keeps on rising, and the applause is a rope around my throat, and I'm so tired of dying in my own light, so tired of smiling, so tired of being whole. (whispered) Hold me together... just one more night. [Build – drums and guitars crash back in, rising intensity] [Final Chorus – soaring, powerful clean vocal with layered harmonies, emotional and cracking] I wear the masquerade of ruin, a jester draped in black, a broken spirit in borrowed colors, a beast with no heart to hold it back. [Scream, raw and desperate] NO ONE SEES THE BLEEDING, MY SILENCE NEVER BREAKS! [Breakdown – heavy, slow, half-spoken, then guttural scream] If the mask should crack, the world will see my bones. [Outro – fragile, whispered, fading out] It cannot fall... it will not fall. [Fade Out]