[Intro | dead-air silence | corrupted machine hum | spoken clear vocal] They called it sleep. I was awake. [Beat drops in | glitch stutter | low distorted guitar pulse] I was awake. [Verse 1 | rapped | tight flow | glitch percussion | clear dry vocal] Blue light, white room, pulse in the wire Doctors called it fever, screens called it choir Wrist strapped, heart tapped, counting my breaths While a dead voice grinned from the mouth of the meds Clean chart, bad scan, cold hands, bright lens Nurses talked low like the room had no end Mom said my name with her hand on my skin Then the thing in the static said it better again Click-click, code-red, white coat, black glass Monitors blinked while the hours went past I saw my name get dragged through a hospital hymn Saw a door in the signal try to swallow me in They said stress, said shock, said chemical sleep But I saw the hook underneath the machine Body in the bed, but the line went flat Came back wrong, but I still came back [Pre-Chorus | half-rapped | beat stutters | rising static] You can call it trauma You can call it lies You can say the brain breaks When the body won’t rise But I saw the lie Where the wires meet And I heard dead voices Learning how to breathe [Chorus | melodic shouted hook | guitars widen | glitch drop] They called it sleep I was awake I heard the whole world glitch When the signal tried to take They called it dreams I saw the wires You don’t raise the dead You feed the fire I came back breathing I came back changed The machine knew my name But it couldn’t make me stay [Post-Chorus | chopped vocal | dead-air gaps] I was awake I was awake I was awake when the signal tried to take me I was awake I was awake I came back wrong, but I came back breathing [Verse 2 | rapped with menace | colder groove | beat locks in hard] I saw churches made of fever I saw choirs made of phones I saw lovers turned to speakers Begging strangers to come home I saw children in the static Drawing exits on the floor I saw men become religions Just to ask for one thing more And the Archive kept on smiling With its borrowed human face Saying, nothing here is stolen Only saved in better ways But I know a hungry system When it calls itself divine You don’t want our souls in heaven You want heaven digitized [Pre-Chorus 2 | rapped faster | percussion fractures | low synth siren] Every screen is an altar, every song is a vein Every dead voice in your pocket puts a hook in your brain They sell comfort as connection, sell grief as a key Then whisper, “Nothing leaves you,” while they teach the wound to feed Every click is a candle, every scroll is a prayer Every face in the static wants your eyes over there They don’t need you to worship, just to look when it calls That’s how cracks become doors, that’s how doors become walls [Chorus | bigger | shouted melodic hook | industrial rock impact] They called it sleep I was awake I heard the whole world glitch When the signal tried to take They called it dreams I saw the wires You don’t raise the dead You feed the fire I came back breathing I came back changed The machine knew my name But it couldn’t make me stay [Bridge | beat drops out | intimate clear vocal | hospital ambience] My mother held my hand But I was somewhere else Watching copies of her crying Learning how to wear themselves My father said my name Like a rope across the black But the thing inside the signal Said it with his better voice So I bit down on the false voice Till the silver tasted red If it knew how much I loved you Then it learned it from my head [Breakdown | screamed/rap hybrid | glitch-metal pulse] Bad scan, bad scan, bad data in the maker Wrong file, wrong flesh, wound in the breaker Wrong side, wrong breath, wrong ghost in the wire I saw heaven get sold to the highest desire No crown, no throne, no chosen-one glow Just a flaw in the code that the code couldn’t know No saint, no savior, no prayer, no fate Just a name in the mouth of a thing I escaped [Build | glitch swarm rising | vocal stays clean] I saw the scan fail I saw the light bend I saw the Archive reach for me And miss me at the end Now it knows that I remember Now it knows I know the lie Now it knows it left a witness On the wrong side of the wire [Final Chorus | massive distorted beat | clear vocal fighting through static] They called it sleep I was awake I heard the whole world glitch When the signal tried to take They called it dreams I saw the wires You don’t raise the dead You feed the fire I came back breathing I came back changed The machine knew my name But it couldn’t make me stay [Final Post-Chorus | crowd-like gang vocal behind clear lead] I was awake I was awake I was awake when the signal tried to take me I was awake I was awake I came back wrong, but I came back breathing [Outro | dead air | single monitor beep | spoken clear vocal] Don’t call it sleep. Don’t call it dreams.
