[Intro] [Spoken Word] (softly) My name is Idris Reyes. Lieutenant. Navy. I have watched you six days. I know what I should do. [Verse 1] (spoken, low) There is a vial in the glove box, Sorsogon salt My training says pour it and walk to the truck A corpsman told me once, do not look at the sky I laughed at him then. I am not laughing. I am stuck. [Pre-Chorus] (half-sung, building) Your lower half stands in the banana grove No blood at the seam, and the wind moves your shirt I set down my phone in the paddy mud And I speak to the half of you here in the dirt [Chorus] (sung, warm, belted) I won't use the salt, padaba I won't use the salt tonight I have carried my sister twelve years in a wallet Forty minutes from you, and I won't lose the light [Verse 2] (spoken) Six years old, red dress, a Santo Niño doll One knee scabbed on a step in Olongapo I have driven past CHOP and I never went in I do not know what I will be if she opens the door [Bridge] (sung, rising) Then my heart goes still for the length of a beat And into the silence, your slow one leans The click in my sternum, my molars, my ear Two metronomes finding what synchrony means [Chorus] (full) I won't use the salt, padaba I will be here till you come back whole You are cold, I say, and I hold out my jacket The word costs me everything. I let it go. [Outro] (spoken, fade) Padaba. You are cold. [End]
