Who We Are in What We'd Never Show

Lyrics

Navassa Island. Black coral rock, sharp under my boots.
A place forbidden since the guano miners rose up in 1889.
No freshwater. No forgiveness.
And in a sun-bleached crevice, tucked beneath a ledge... paper.
A stack of it, stiff with salt.

The manifest just called him Hygiene Harry.
A cruel joke, I'm sure.
London, 1872. A night-soil collector.
His rounds began at two a.m. in the mews, under the weak gaslight.
The scrape of the wooden barrel on cobblestones.
The heavy smell of horse sweat, wet straw, and sharp ammonia.
He carted away the city's private waste, the things they did behind closed doors. An anonymous ghost in the dark.

But this stack of paper... this is the other soil.
The night-work of the soul, printed out line by line.
Every search, every question, every path he took alone in the glow of a screen he shouldn't have had.
Who are we, Harry?
Who are we in the things we'd never, ever show?

The queries are faded now, almost gone.
"How to leave England with no money."
"Symptoms of a lonely heart."
"Pictures of the Caribbean Sea."
He typed the names of stars he couldn't see for the London smoke.
He looked for the children of men on his route, wondering what they became.
He typed his own name, over and over, just to see it exist somewhere clean.

This is the other soil.
The night-work of the soul, printed out line by line.
Every search, every question, every path he took alone in the glow of a screen that wasn't real.
Who are we, Harry?
Who are we in the things we'd never, ever show?

He took the waste of the mind to an island made of waste.
From the city's filth to a fortress of guano.
He left this printout here, on this restricted rock, this place of rebellion and isolation.
A digital ghost on a forbidden shore.
Did he think the salt and the sun and the birds would be enough to erase him completely?
Did he need the most unreachable place to abandon the most private thing?

The ink is a ghost now.
The paper feels like a dead leaf.
All that's left is the shape of his wanting.
The question mark at the end of every line.
Who are we... when no one is looking?