Reconstruit (Rebuilt)

Lyrics

[Intro]
(piano enters like someone opening curtains after a long illness)
(strings rise underneath, slowly, the way light fills a room that's been dark for a while)

[Verse 1]
The market is closing
And the vendors fold their tables
Like letters they've been meaning to send
For years

I'm carrying a bag
Of beautiful defeated objects
Each one heavy with the weight
Of having once belonged to someone
Who is not me
And now is me
And the transfer of belonging
Happened without paperwork
Just a price
And a nod
And the vendor's hands
Releasing

[Pre-Chorus]
(accordion enters, warm, arriving like an old friend)
And somewhere in the part of me
That knows how to mend
Without being told to —
The part that works the night shift
In a department
Nobody funded
And nobody inspects —
Something is being built

Not replaced
Not restored
Built
From material the wreckage provided
And the building
Doesn't read the manual
The building just builds
The way brambles build
In a lot
That the city forgot it owned

[Chorus]
(full — strings, piano, accordion, timpani, the biggest sound in Act II)
Reconstruit, reconstruit
The body builds in the dark
Reconstruit, reconstruit
In the room where the damage reported
And the report was filed
And the filing was ignored
And the ignoring
Was the permission
The building needed
To start
Without approval
Without a blueprint
Without the mind
Knowing
That underneath the floorboards
The repairs
Were already
In progress

[Verse 2]
(stripped — just voice and piano, confessional)
They said the finished version
Doesn't grow new rooms
They said the architecture
Was complete at twenty-five
They said the building
Stops accepting
New tenants

And the building
Didn't read that paper either
And kept adding rooms
In the basement
In the dark
In the part of the structure
That smells faintly
Of wet black loam
And determination
And the determination
Had no name
It just had a preference
For continuing
And the continuing
Was enough

[Bridge]
(strings swell — the repair becoming visible)
I looked at my bag of broken things
And I looked at the canal
And the canal was the colour
Of a decision made at peace
And the afternoon had the texture
Of a new bandage — clean, white, specific

And I thought:
The interesting part
Was never the original
The interesting part
Was always the rebuild
The second version
That nobody authorised
That grew in the dark
From material the breaking provided
And was stronger
Not because it was better built
But because it knew
What breaking felt like
And built accordingly

[Outro]
(full arrangement pulling back to just accordion and piano — the warmth after the storm)
Reconstruit
(softly, carrying the bag, walking home from the market)
The dark room
The night shift
The brambles in the forgotten lot
(accordion holds one warm chord)
The building continues
(spoken:)
Fin de l'Acte II — Le Marché