La Fable

Lyrics

[Intro]
The armchair by the window.
The light is low.
This is the workshop.
This is where you are made.

[Verse 1]
The early chapters glow, don't they?
That reminiscence bump, McAdams called it.
Nineteen ninety-eight.
The taste of cheap red wine on a fire escape in July.
Every conversation a turning point.
Every glance a plot device.
I wrote it all in permanent ink, or so I thought.
A hero's journey, clean and bright.

[Chorus]
But this is the fable of the self.
A perpetually rewritten story.
I dip the pen, I cross out a line.
I change the ending just to make the middle make sense.
Joan Didion knew.
We tell ourselves these stories in order to live.

[Verse 2]
Then came the chapter that broke the binding.
The phone call in March.
The empty side of the bed, a sudden continent.
The plot just... fell apart.
The ink ran in the rain on the windowpane.
My protagonist, she didn't know her lines anymore.
I had to rip the pages out, start again from the wreckage.
A new beginning, written on a scar.

[Chorus]
Yes, this is the fable of the self.
A perpetually rewritten story.
I dip the pen, I cross out a reason.
I change the motive just to make the action make sense.
We tell ourselves these stories in order to live.
To survive the day.

[Bridge]
But what about the deleted scenes?
The long, boring Tuesdays.
The moment of pure, unedited rage before I gave it a name.
The version of me that lives in your memory, a character I can no longer control.
All the marginalia, all the drafts I burned...
They're the real story, aren't they?
The parts that don't fit the fable.

[Outro]
The pen is still in my hand.
The book is open on my lap.
It is never finished.
Jerome Bruner was right.
A new sentence is beginning.
Just a quiet sound.