[Intro - Clean electric guitar arpeggios, dorm room 4-track hiss, someone walking down the hall] [Verse 1 - Earnest, slightly breathless delivery] Sarah's population peaks around eleven PM When she's wine-drunk texting from her roommate's bed again I'm in the library basement with my graphing calculator Plotting how we oscillate—predator, prey, or something greater When my attention crests, she's already declining When she's abundant, I'm consumed with defining These differential equations that govern how we move She's the fox, I'm the rabbit, or—wait, let me reprove [Pre-Chorus - Building confidence] 'Cause Lotka-Volterra says we'll cycle back around Every system has its period, its peaks and its downs (She hasn't texted back in three days but that's fine) [Chorus - Full college rock energy, tambourine enters] We're coupled oscillators in the phase plane of this town When you're up, I'm coming up, when I'm up, you're going down Draw the arrows, check the eigenvalues twice We're spiraling stable—no wait, that's not right We're spiraling somewhere, girl, we're spiraling somewhere [Verse 2 - More manic, excited by the math] Posted on her door: "Gone to Madison for the weekend" While I'm finding limit cycles, she's finding other friends But look—if we adjust the carrying capacity Factor in the Thursday parties and my study tenacity The model starts converging! No, diverging—hold on She's standing in my doorway saying something feels wrong I show her my notebook: "Look, we're periodic!" She says "Josh, I'm trying to be serious, can you quit it?" [Bridge - Stripped down, just guitar and voice, reality creeping in] In ecology lab, Professor Davies draws the curves Says "Sometimes populations crash and never return" But I've run the simulations at least sixty times Changed initial conditions, step sizes, tried every line Sarah's at the door with a box of my things Says she met someone whose presence doesn't oscillate or swing I'm still holding my printout of our phase portrait She says "Josh, this isn't science" I say "I know, but I thought if I caught it—" [Verse 3 - Desperate, everything speeding up] Wait, I found the error in my MATLAB code! We're not predator-prey, we're mutualist mode! Both populations can grow together, see the proof? She's already walking backward, shaking her head at my youth [Final Chorus - Defeated but still somehow hopeful] We're coupled oscillators in the phase plane of this town When you're up, I'm coming up—no, you're already down Drew the arrows, checked the eigenvalues twice We're spiraling unstable and that has to suffice We're spiraling somewhere, girl (I'm spiraling somewhere) [Outro - Solo guitar arpeggios, field recording of campus at night] Muttering while writing "Maybe if I use Runge-Kutta instead of Euler's method..." "The foxes eat the rabbits, but what do the rabbits eat?" "Sarah, if you see this, I've got a new model—" Door closes Guitar continues, slowly detuning [Final spoken line, barely audible] "Next semester I'm taking nonlinear dynamics" [Fade to just the hum of dormitory electricity]
