Mr. Last-Word — At Any Friendship Cost

Lyrics

The table is cleared.
Your chair is empty now.
Just the silence you bought.

It started small, didn't it?
Sunday brunch. A historical fact.
Something about zoning laws.
I saw your eyebrow twitch.
The tell.
The phone already in your hand, screen bright.
Wikipedia.
And you were right. You were right in the first thirty seconds.
We all said, "Oh. Okay. You were right."
But that wasn't enough.

You had to have the last word.
Even after the war was won.
You planted your flag on a mountain of footnotes.
And the air grew so thin.
So cold.
You traded a friend for a fact.
And you kept the receipt.
The last word.

You kept going.
Bylaw sections recited like scripture.
My fork sounded like a gunshot on the plate.
I watched Sarah’s face just… close.
Like a door locking from the inside.
This wasn't about the truth anymore.
It was about the win.
The final, unassailable point, delivered to a room that had already moved on to dessert.

You had to have the last word.
Even after the war was won.
You planted your flag on a mountain of footnotes.
And the air grew so thin.
So cold.
You traded a friend for a fact.
And you kept the receipt.
The last word.

I think about your bedside table.
That book, "Debate & Discourse," all dog-eared.
I think about that late-night call last month.
The click when I hung up.
The metallic taste in the air.
You won that one, too.
You've won them all.
Look at all this quiet you've won.

The table is cleared.
Your chair is empty.
The last word is hanging in the air.
And it's the only thing left.