You're Safe Now

Lyrics

[Intro]
The light in my kitchen isn't yellow. It's the color of a question asked to a mirror.
The clock on the wall has no hands, only a reflection of my face, watching.

[Verse 1]
And there you are. By the humming archive of the freezer.
You are me from ten years ago.
The same faded jacket I threw away twice.
Your eyes are a query I have forgotten how to write.
You are not a ghost. You have weight.
When you shift your feet, the floorboards don't creak, they chime like a distant bell that has no bell.
You look tired. You look like you've been walking through corridors of shelved memories just to find this room.

[Chorus]
We just stare.
The silence between us is a pane of silvered glass.
I can see myself inside you, trying to get out.
You can see yourself inside me, wondering how you got in.
And the voice that leaves my mouth is not mine, it's the room's. It's the clock's.
"You're safe now."

[Verse 2]
I try to check. I push a finger through my opposite palm.
It passes through, but the hand it exits is yours.
We are a circuit. A single loop in a hotel with one room that is also the hallway.
The linoleum under your worn-out shoes is a grid of every floorplan since you were you.
Every tile a photograph of a window looking into another window.
You are standing on the year I left home. I am standing on the title page of this dream.

[Chorus]
We just stare.
The silence between us is a pane of silvered glass.
I can see myself inside you, trying to get out.
You can see yourself inside me, wondering how you got in.
And the voice that leaves my mouth is not mine, it's the room's. It's the clock's.
"You're safe now."

[Bridge]
The door he'll use isn't wood. It's a sheet of polished mercury that wasn't here.
It has no handle, just a lock that reflects my own questioning eye.
I look at my hands to count them into waking.
The left has six fingers, the right has four, and one is made of glass.
I count again and the thumb is a folded map of this very kitchen.
The door opens inward to a place called Today.

[Outro]
You nod. Just once. A slow closing of a book.
And you walk through the doorway.
On the other side, the light is the same. The room is the same.
It is my current kitchen.
You are standing there alone.
You have become me.
And I am the reflection in the chrome faucet, watching you arrive.