Le Détail

Lyrics

[Intro]
The door clicks shut.
The sound of the street drains away.
The world goes quiet.
And there is only the work.

[Verse 1]
It is 1898 again.
This shed is cold, even for December.
The roof leaks a slow, steady rhythm onto the floor.
My hands know the weight of the pitchblende.
The mortar and the pestle.
Hours become a fine grey dust in the air.
Paris is a rumor.
The gaslights on the boulevard are a forgotten story.
There is only you.
An ethereal glow in the dark.
A promise in a glass beaker.

[Chorus]
And the world shrinks to this single point of light.
Two centimeters wide.
The rest is fog, the rest is noise, the rest is not my life.
Time is a liar, a broken clock.
My hunger is a ghost I waved goodbye to at the door.
My name is the ache in my shoulder.
There is only the detail.
Le détail.

[Verse 2]
The bread on the table is a statue from another age.
The coffee has grown a skin of ice.
I am told it is morning, but the windows are black with focus.
My body is a tool I am using.
The cold has forgotten my skin.
My thirst is a distant country I have no plans to visit.
Someone called my name, hours ago.
I think it was Pierre.
But I was listening to you.
To the quiet hum of your becoming.

[Chorus]
And the world shrinks to this single point of light.
Two centimeters wide.
The rest is fog, the rest is noise, the rest is not my life.
Time is a liar, a broken clock.
My hunger is a ghost I waved goodbye to at the door.
My name is the ache in my shoulder.
There is only the detail.
Le détail.

[Bridge]
They write about this in books now.
Flow state, they call it.
A mind stretched to its limit to accomplish something worthwhile.
But it does not feel like a mind.
It feels like a lens.
It feels like being the grinding stone.
It feels like I am not a woman in a shed.
I am the force that isolates the light.

[Outro]
A bird sings outside.
The sound is an intrusion, a crack in the glass.
Grey light bleeds through the window frame.
And your glow… your perfect glow…
It is a little fainter now against the dawn.
But you are still there.
The work is still there.
Tomorrow.
The detail again.