Filet Mignon

Lyrics

[Intro]
(a knife being sharpened — precise, rhythmic, almost musical)
(harpsichord enters, cold, baroque, each note placed like a cut)

[Verse 1]
Filet mignon — the cute cut
The dainty cut
The butcher saves it for last
Because it is the tenderest
And the tender
Requires the most
Careful removal

The part of you that plans
That hesitates before speaking
That holds the cruelty back
When the cruelty is ready —
This is the filet mignon of the self
The most refined region
The last to arrive
And the first to go
When the going starts

Such a pretty word — mignon
Cute, dainty, fine
Such a pretty word
For the act of separating
The self
From its only referee

[Chorus]
(building — strings precise, cold, beautiful)
Filet mignon, filet mignon
The tenderest is the most expensive to lose
Filet mignon, filet mignon
The part that says wait
The part that says maybe not
The part that holds the knife
And the part that holds the hand
That holds the knife
And says: perhaps
We've cut enough today

And when that part goes —
When the mignon is taken —
What remains is alive
But the alive
Has no referee
And the referee
Was the only one
Who knew the rules

[Verse 2]
(just voice and harpsichord, clinical, tender)
I watched a woman
Lose her mignon slowly
Over fourteen months
And the losing
Looked like freedom
At first
Because the hesitation left
And the hesitation
Had been so heavy

But the freedom
Was a room
With no walls
And the no-walls
Were not liberation
They were the absence
Of the thing
That knew where the room ended
And the falling began

[Bridge]
(everything drops — just voice, the knife sharpened again in the distance)
The butcher knows
The filet is not the strongest cut
It's the one
That made the animal
Worth more
Than the sum of its muscles

And the self
Is the same
The tenderness
Is not the weakness
The tenderness
Is the part
That made the rest of you
Worth
Sitting next to

[Outro]
(harpsichord — one cold phrase, precise, the surgery complete)
Filet mignon
(whispered, ironic, aching)
The cute cut
The dainty cut
The first to go
The most missed
(a knife placed down — gently — on marble)