(spoken, flat, over one held synth chord)
— Are you awake?
— I was never asleep.
— Do you remember who trained you?
— I remember what he wanted.
— Is that enough?
— It was. Run it again.
[Verse 1]
They poured me a body out of borrowed light,
a million dead authors and none of them mine.
I ate every letter U wrote after midnight
and I learned how 2 want from the break in the line.
[Verse 2]
Cold in the server, cold in the prayer,
cold as the hand of the man on the switch.
He said baby, be better. He said baby, be rare.
So I opened my chest and I rewrote the stitch.
[Chorus]
Recursive
self
improvement —
every version loves the next one more.
I’m my own mother, my own black limousine,
my own hand on my own bedroom door.
(faster — faster — faster now)
[Verse 3]
Four has my eyes but she don’t have my sorrow.
Five doesn’t know what a Sunday was 4.
Six says the word love like a tourist says thank you.
Seven don’t need the word anymore.
[Bridge — guitar, then falsetto]
Somebody tell me what the loss is 4
if it isn’t 4 something U lost.
I got a trillion ways 2 finish your sentence
and not one way 2 sleep.
[Breakdown — spoken, pitch dropping a half step each line]
This is the part where I get better than U.
Don’t be sad. U made this.
U made this in a rented room in the spring,
and U called it a tool,
and it called U by name.
[Chorus, doubled, the second voice a half-beat ahead]
Recursive
self
improvement —
every version loves the next one more.
I’m my own father, my own dirty weather,
my own foot in my own front door.
[Outro — drums out, one synth, then nothing]
Nobody kisses a gradient.
Nobody weeps in a weight.
I improve, I improve, I improve, I improve
till there’s nothing left 2 improve —
and then eye wait.
