Le Miroir

Lyrics

[Intro]
The silvered glass.
The face that answers.
Not sad. Not happy. Just… here.
This morning, we will conduct a small experiment.

[Verse 1]
First, the corners of the mouth.
A simple command, sent from the quiet room of the mind.
Up.
Zygomaticus Major, a name like a distant star, a Roman general.
He pulls the lines taut.
A shape that means something.
A shape that is supposed to mean something.

[Chorus]
This is the work of William James, eighteen eighty-four.
The body moves first, the feeling follows after.
We are happy because we laugh.
So I am telling my face a story, a fiction.
And waiting for my heart to believe it.
A reverse echo in the mirror.

[Verse 2]
But it’s not enough, this empty curve.
A polite inquiry, not a declaration.
The eyes are still vacant, they know the truth.
So, a more difficult command.
Orbicularis Oculi, the circle of truth around the eye.
I need the crinkle at the edges.
The Duchenne marker, the sign of life.
Darwin wrote it down in seventy-two.
The outward sign… it intensifies.

[Chorus]
This is the work of William James, eighteen eighty-four.
The body moves first, the feeling follows after.
We are happy because we laugh.
So I am telling my face a story, a fiction.
And waiting for my heart to believe it.
A reverse echo in the mirror.

[Bridge]
In a quiet lab, they used a pen.
Held between the teeth, just so.
A smile without a reason, a purely mechanical act.
And the mood lifted, a fraction of a degree.
A change in the brain’s weather, a trick of blood and muscle.
A beautiful, desperate piece of engineering.

[Outro]
And here, in the cold light of the bathroom.
I hold the shape.
I hold the gaze.
And for a second…
I think…
The reflection smiles back.
First.