Odes to Joy

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Canonical) · Track 342 · middle

Three of Us

Li Bai

Lyrics

**Central Image:** The wine cup as vessel of synaptic fire—each drink a moment of disinhibition that unlocked language, each poem written in rapture.

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[Verse 1]
Your cup tilts back and the world splits open—
not drunk but *lit*, each synapse firing
its small bright rebellion against the ordinary.
The wine cuts through the noise, your prefrontal cortex
loosening its grip, and suddenly the moon
speaks in your mouth. You pour again.
This is your instrument: the grape, the gaze,
the long-term potentiation of beauty burned
into every line you'll chase before dawn.

[Chorus]
You drink to *feel* the language coming—
not to escape but to arrive,
your mirror neurons blazing with the world's ache,
your cortex remapped by every cup,
and I am watching you become
more *you* with each refill.

[Verse 2]
Your hand knows the physics of the brush—
proprioception tuned to catch the tremor,
the glial cells supporting every mad stroke.
Wine thins the veil between thought and utterance;
your hippocampus codes each intoxicated vision
into memory, axonal branches reaching
toward impossible metaphors. The moon, again.
Always the moon, but *your* moon now—
myelinated, wild, entirely new.

[Chorus]
You drink to *feel* the language coming—
not to escape but to arrive,
your mirror neurons blazing with the world's ache,
your cortex remapped by every cup,
and I am watching you become
more *you* with each refill.

[Bridge]
This is not ruin. This is *clarity*—
predictive coding broken open,
interoception screaming *alive*,
your body knowing what your sober mind
could never dare to say.

[Chorus]
You drink to *feel* the language coming—
not to escape but to arrive,
your mirror neurons blazing with the world's ache,
your cortex remapped by every cup,
and I am watching you become
more *you* with each refill.

[Outro]
The cup empties. The poem remains.
Your lips still wet with wine and starlight,
and the page glows because you *dared*.

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**Word count: 312**
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