Phantom Limb

Lyrics

[Intro]
(piano — a phrase that reaches for a note that isn't there, pauses, reaches again)
(strings enter, sustaining where the missing note should be)

[Verse 1]
The map in the brain
Has a room for every finger
A corridor for the wrist
A banquet hall for the palm

And when the hand is gone
The map doesn't know
The map keeps setting the table
In the banquet hall
Sending invitations
To a guest list
That includes a thumb
That left six months ago
Without forwarding its post

And the banquet happens anyway
The nerve endings fire
Into a space shaped exactly
Like the thing they've lost
And the firing
Has the specific ache
Of a landlord
Maintaining a garden
For a tenant
Who moved out
But whose lease
The cortex
Never cancelled

[Chorus]
(building — strings, the ache expanding)
Phantom limb, phantom limb
The body keeps a chair
For what it's missing
Phantom limb, phantom limb
The map keeps sending letters
To an address
That the fire took
And the postman
Still walks the route
Every morning
Because the route
Is older than the fire
And the route
Does not read the news

[Verse 2]
(just voice and detuned celeste, uncanny and tender)
A woman in the ward
Scratches an itch
On a foot
That is two years gone
And the scratching satisfies
Because the itch
Was never in the foot
The itch was in the map
And the map
Can be scratched
And the map says: yes
That's better
Thank you
And the thank you
Arrives in a room
That is fully furnished
And completely empty
And the furnished emptiness
Is the cruellest suburb
The brain has ever built

[Bridge]
(everything drops — voice and one sustained string, the simplest truth)
I think the phantom
Is not the limb
The phantom is the love
The brain had for the limb

And the love doesn't know
How to stop delivering
To an address
That isn't receiving

And the delivering
Without the receiving
Is what pain is
When the thing that hurts
Is the loyalty
Of a system
Too devoted
To update

[Outro]
(piano — the reaching phrase from the intro, one more time, still missing the note)
Phantom limb
(whispered)
The chair is set
The garden is kept
The route continues
(the missing note never arrives — the song ends in the space where it should be)