INTRO (solo guitar harmonics, one string slightly detuned) Moon on the threshold. A pale coin pressed into night. A guitar remembers what the hands forgot. It trembles. VERSE 1 (voice enters, breath-close, steady) The street tightens its jaw. Balconies lean like listening ribs. Curtains breathe behind closed mouths. Windows blink once, then pretend sleep. I pass an orange tree— its fruit are small suns, held back. A shadow crosses the wall. No body follows. My name comes after me like a child dragging a tin pail. I do not turn. VERSE 2 (cello enters low, sustained, patient) Blood is a red bird resting in my wrist. It sleeps lightly. It wakes for metal. It wakes for certain words. It knows the sound before the cut. The moon is not kind— it watches. I kneel to the dust and ask what lasts. The dust says: footsteps. hunger. and grief that keeps moving. again. again. BRIDGE (breath-choir enters softly, vowels only; strings begin to swell) Hope is not light. It is a knot. A green ribbon tied to a stone, lowered into a well, waiting to hear itself return. Fear grows flowers. Love grows thorns. Both drink from the same cup. CLIMAX (full chamber strings, restrained power; choir opens wider on vowels) I stand under the moon’s cold hand. I stand where sweetness burns away. I stand and the dark opens its palm to count my pulse. I stand while the choir lifts a ladder of breath. I climb nothing. I climb myself. I stand. I stand. OUTRO (instruments fall away; guitar returns alone) Dawn does not arrive. It bleeds at the edges. The orange tree shivers, once. I walk on. Behind me, my shadow carries a lantern— no flame, only the memory of heat.
