Cortisol Paradise

Lyrics

[Intro]
Hey there, cortisol, my old flame, flooding in at 6 AM sharp, just like Hans promised back in '36.

[Verse 1]
I wake to your rush, that sharp spike in my veins,
Hans Selye's notebook, yellowed pages from Montreal,
dated July 4, 1936, when you first showed your face
in those rattled rats, dropped by accident, their tiny hearts pounding.
You're the alarm clock I never set, brewing in my adrenal glands,
a bitter black coffee taste on my tongue before the sun hits the window.

[Chorus]
Oh, cortisol paradise, what a joke, this electric blue pulse
in my gilded synapse, promising energy but delivering the shakes.
You're the king of allostatic load, Bruce McEwen's ghost whispering
from Rockefeller's chilled labs, 1975, vials at 4 degrees Celsius,
sharp ethanol sting in the air, while I chase serenity in your storm.

[Verse 2]
Remember Selye's worn notebook, ink smudged on entry 23,
'General Adaptation Syndrome,' your three-act play: alarm, resistance, exhaustion.
I address you now, close like a lover's breath, but you're the dirtbag
who lingers too long, turning my hippocampus into a shrunken relic,
that sterile room in New York, fluorescent buzz overhead, pipettes clicking.

[Bridge]
Bruce said you could be growth or damage, a stimulus in disguise,
but in this paradise of yours, I feel the fracture lines,
like that cracked hourglass in Dali's dream, sand leaking into twilight.
What if I rewrite your script, turn your flood into a trickle?

[Verse 3]
Midnight in the lab, assistants unnamed, handling your essence
in glass syringes, cold to the touch, anonymous blood samples
from patients whose stresses you mapped without asking their names.
You're my morning ritual, 6 AM peak, circadian rhapsody gone wrong,
but I'll bio-hack your paradise, breathe you down to calm.

[Outro]
Cortisol, my sarcastic paradise, Hans and Bruce saw through you,
now I do too, notebook closed, vials empty, just breath in the dawn.