The White One at the Window (Nikola Tesla)

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
You needed the napkins
to be eighteen.
You needed the block
to be three.
You needed the number
to be three
or a multiple of three
or the number
was not welcome
in the room.

And the room
was a lifeboat
with very specific rules
about who
it let on board.

[Verse 2]
You fell in love
with a bird
that came to your window.
You said of her,
*I loved her
as a man loves a woman*,
and you meant every word
precisely
because you meant every word
of everything
precisely.

The bird
understood this
in the way
birds understand things —
without knowing
she knew.

[Chorus]
And I love you
for the grid
you gave away
for nothing.
And I love you
for the bird.
And I love you
for the room
on the thirty-third floor
where the only love
you knew how to route
landed
on a six-inch sill.

[Verse 3]
The city below
ran on the thing
you designed
and never remembered
your name.
The bird
was the only address
the love had.
When she stopped coming,
the address
closed.

[Outro]
The grid did not flicker
when you died.
It kept going
exactly the way
you taught it.
Somewhere in that room
there was a sill
with no bird on it
and that
was the whole catastrophe.

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