The Doorway Effect

Lyrics

[Intro]
(a door opening — real, creaking, domestic)
(celeste — a melody that starts confidently then loses itself mid-phrase)
(pizzicato — the hesitation of someone standing in a room they entered on purpose and now can't remember why)

[Verse 1]
I walked through the kitchen door
With a reason
The reason had shape and weight
The reason was a sentence
My body was carrying
Like a glass of water
On a tray
Across the room

And the doorway —
The wooden frame
The threshold
The change of light —
Swallowed the sentence
The way a chapter break
Swallows the name
Of the character
You were just reading about

The room ate my reason
And offered me nothing
In exchange
Except a vague feeling
That something was due
At a counter
That has already closed

[Chorus]
(building — playful, strings and celeste, the comedy warm)
The doorway effect, the doorway effect
The threshold is an eraser
Dressed as architecture
The doorway effect, the doorway effect
I came in here for something
The something has been filed
Under: the room you just left
And the room you just left
Has changed the locks

[Verse 2]
(just voice and clarinet, wry, standing in the room)
I've started telling myself the reason
Out loud
Like a passenger announcing their stop
So the bus knows
Not to carry them past it

Scissors — I came for scissors
But the doorway heard scissors
And replaced it
With a general sense
Of purpose
Without the purpose
Which is a envelope
Without the letter
A shoe without the foot
An itch
On a limb the room
Has temporarily
Misplaced

[Chorus]
The doorway effect, the doorway effect
The threshold is an eraser
Dressed as architecture
The doorway effect, the doorway effect
I came in here for something

[Bridge]
(everything drops — voice and piano, the comedy turning tender)
The thing is
The doorway isn't broken
The doorway is doing its job

The mind files experience in chapters
And every door is a chapter break
And the chapter break
Says to the memory:
You may now forget
What was urgent
On the previous page

And the forgetting
Is not a failure
The forgetting is the border guard
Between one room
And the next
And the border guard
Is thorough
And the thoroughness
Is why you can enter a cathedral
And feel different
Without changing

And also why
You can walk into your kitchen
For scissors
And leave with a banana
And the banana
Was nobody's plan
But the banana
Is what the new chapter
Had in mind

[Outro]
(the door opens again — the same creak)
(the celeste melody tries again — finds its way this time, one more bar further than before)
The doorway effect
(softly, smiling, already forgetting)
I came for the scissors
I left with the song
(door closes — gently — new chapter)