[Intro - electrical hum cuts out, silence, buzz tries and fails, longer silence] [Verse 1 - clinical, controlled, present tense] Power went out whole block not just me The board is dead the monitors are dead The lights are The lights are out So I'm standing on a stage in the dark And everyone went home Everyone always goes home It's so quiet [Pre-Chorus - intellectual defense, holding] This is just reduced input This is not a crisis This is a power cut on a Tuesday [Chorus - fragile, signal flickering] Dead air the signal stopped And I'm still here I think I'm still here The moment the sound stops And whoever's listening wonders if anyone's there [Verse 2 - loosening, personal despite herself] My hands keep reaching for the board But the board is dead And my hands don't know what they're for When they're not adjusting something I sat down on the stage I never sit on the stage The stage is for standing the stage is for sound I'm noticing my own breathing [Pre-Chorus - crumbling, sensory, involuntary] The floor is cold the air smells like copper I moved toward a stripe of light without deciding to That's not a metaphor I'm sitting on a floor [Chorus - rawer, unstable, exposed] Dead air eleven minutes And I can feel something in my chest I usually cover with the set list The signal stopped and underneath it I think that's what I sound like without the mix [Bridge - almost nothing, breath and hum, the climax] Who's in the room Not Cadenza she needs a stage and lights If I say my name right now which name comes out It's in my mouth like something I swallowed wrong Thirteen minutes in the dark and she's breathing [Outro - the hum returns, a click, lights buzz on, the silence was survivable, fade on the hum coming back to life]
