L'Abandon

Lyrics

The cold brass of the key.
Still in my hand.
The door is shut behind me.
The world is shut behind me.

All the miles, I was a stone.
Shoulders braced against the window glass.
Jaw set against the engine's drone.
Holding my breath so the time would pass.
My coat still smells of the night air, the street.
A vessel holding everything inside.
Careful not to spill, careful not to weep.
Nowhere to break, nowhere to hide.

And then I see your face.
And the body, it does not ask permission.
It is a sudden grace.
A chemical, a sacred demolition.
This is the let-down. L'abandon.
The dam inside gives way.
The same signal for the milk and for the sorrow.
The signal that says... stay.

I remember the ghost of a feeling.
A baby's cry from another room, another life.
The sudden warmth, the tingling, revealing
A current running sharp as any knife.
A photo, a thought, was all that it required.
An involuntary offering, a flow.
The body's memory, never tired.
The part of you that knows which way to go.

And then I see your face.
And the body, it does not ask permission.
It is a sudden grace.
A chemical, a sacred demolition.
This is the let-down. L'abandon.
The dam inside gives way.
The same signal for the milk and for the sorrow.
The signal that says... stay.

A man named it "swift birth" a long time ago.
Oxytocin. For the beginning of things.
He did not know it was for the end of the road, too.
For the relief a quiet threshold brings.
It is not sadness, this salt on my lips.
It is the pressure, finally released.
The long conversation of the fingertips,
The war inside me has finally ceased.

Just the key on the wooden table.
The warmth spreading through my chest.
A story the body is able to tell.
Rest.
You are home now.
Rest.