[Verse 1 — slow, sparse] I caught my lies on the bathroom floor wearing somebody else's past same little pause before the answer same silence when the room gets louder I used to think blood was only blood a family name, a crooked thumb but I inherited the way we leave before anybody asks us to breathe [Pre-Chorus — rising, uneasy] And that's the part I can't explain I never learned it, still I know the shape like an old recording underneath warped every time it reaches me [Chorus — sensual, low, aching] I'm faded like a tape played too many times I hear your voice coming out of mine I didn't choose the ink but somehow learned the handwriting I'm faded like a tape and I'm scared I sound just like you [Post-Chorus — fragmented] Oh— that's mine. Isn't it? No... that's yours. [Verse 2 — conversational, strange details] There's a laugh I make when I'm uncomfortable I hate it 'cause I've heard it before there's a way I turn a harmless question into a locked and bolted door I fold my anger very neatly then forget where I put it I call it being careful maybe that's just what we called it [Pre-Chorus — almost whispered] And suddenly the mirror feels less like glass, more like evidence every little twitch a footnote in the family script [Chorus — fuller, restrained] I'm faded like a tape played too many times I hear your voice coming out of mine I didn't choose the ink but somehow learned the handwriting I'm faded like a tape and I'm scared I sound just like you [Bridge — beat nearly disappears] Maybe inheritance isn't a straight line. Maybe it's a habit waiting in the muscles. Maybe I can keep the strange parts— the crooked laugh, the stubborn hands, the little song nobody remembers— and leave the damage where I found it. [Break — dry vocal, almost spoken] If I become different, does that make me a traitor? If I stay the same, who exactly am I protecting? [Final Chorus — fragile, unresolved] I'm faded like a tape but the tape can still bend I hear your voice then I hear mine again I didn't choose the ink but I can ruin the handwriting I'm faded like a tape not finished yet, just worn at the edges [Outro — tape warble, vocal fragments] Same blood. Different sentence. Same hands. Different ending. ...maybe.
