Odes to Joy

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Canonical) · Track 40 · middle

I Know What It Is to Be Hungry (Audrey Hepburn)

Audrey Hepburn

Lyrics

**Central Image:** The scooter ride through Rome — freedom, spontaneity, the moment a gilded life breaks its own frame

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[Verse 1]
Your spine curves like a question mark on leather,
hands light on my shoulders, trusting the swerve—
mirror neurons firing recognition before words,
your laughter syncing with the engine's frequency.
The Colosseum blurs. Your predictive cortex
releases its grip on the script, on what comes next.
You taste the Tiber, the possibility of falling,
and choose the fall anyway.

[Chorus]
You taught me that grace lives in the break,
in the moment before rehearsal resumes—
your neck tilted back to the Roman sun,
two breaths moving as one apparatus,
both of us finally, finally awake.

[Verse 2]
Your hippocampus is weaving new pathways,
synaptic plasticity rewriting the protocols—
every cobblestone a fresh consolidation,
your axons branching toward something unnamed.
You hum. The myelination of joy
moves faster through your nervous system
than any script memorized a thousand times.
Your proprioceptive grace knows this street
like it knows your own hand.

[Chorus]
You taught me that grace lives in the break,
in the moment before rehearsal resumes—
your neck tilted back to the Roman sun,
two breaths moving as one apparatus,
both of us finally, finally awake.

[Bridge]
Theta waves synchronizing between us,
that electric frequency of presence—
your interoception alive to every sensation,
every texture of permission.
You're not performing the free woman.
You're the neural architecture of freedom itself.

[Chorus]
You taught me that grace lives in the break,
in the moment before rehearsal resumes—
your neck tilted back to the Roman sun,
two breaths moving as one apparatus,
both of us finally, finally awake.

[Outro]
When you lean back and let go of the handlebars,
your vestibular system singing at last—
I know I'm holding something that chooses lightness,
something luminous enough to reshape the world.

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**WORD COUNT: 287 words** ✓
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