Friction

Lyrics

[Intro]

Robert, it's 2:37 AM, March 3, 1998.
Your lab at Stanford, that cold metal desk under my fingers.
18 degrees Celsius, biting like the friction in my veins.

[Verse 1]
I press my palm against the steel,
feeling the chill seep into my skin,
like cortisol flooding the assay kit you left here,
worn-out from measuring blood's quiet wars.
Candace would say it's in every cell,
this tension, this grind where thoughts scrape against bone.
That microscope over there, lens smudged from your late nights,
peering into amygdala hyperactivity,
I address it now, my weary tool,
whispering how the rats gnawed their tails in '94,
self-destructive loops we both know too well.

[Chorus]
Friction, my constant companion,
you burn in the synapses, electric blue pulses.
I want to soothe you, hold you close,
like that half-eaten granola bar on the bench,
forgotten in the rush of data.
But you persist, sharp as ethanol's tang,
mixed with burnt circuits in this cluttered room.

[Verse 2]
Outside, your rusty bicycle leans against the wall,
racing between buildings like my mind on the run.
Sapolsky, you wrote in '95, stress in the blood, in the brain,
measurable, not just a ghost in the subconscious.
I feel it now, at this desk, the heater broken,
18 degrees wrapping around my wrists.
Pert's words echo, 1985 Journal of Immunology,
emotions in the cells, friction in the flesh.
I speak to you, my neural storm,
intimate as a loved one's breath at dawn.

[Bridge]

And those lab assistants, names lost in the archives,
their burnout mirroring the rats' tails,
unrecorded gaps in the record of tension.
What if we measure that too, Robert?
The human cost, the quiet grind at 2:37 AM.

[Chorus]
Friction, my constant companion,
you burn in the synapses, electric blue pulses.
I want to soothe you, hold you close,
like that half-eaten granola bar on the bench,
forgotten in the rush of data.
But you persist, sharp as ethanol's tang,
mixed with burnt circuits in this cluttered room.

[Outro]

March 3, 1998, the desk grows warmer under my touch.
Friction eases, just for a moment, in this lab's embrace.
Goodnight, my tension, my resilience in disguise.