Blindsight

Lyrics

[Intro]
(muted trumpet — noir detective theme, notes slightly wrong, navigating by feel)
(cello drone — the subcortical hum of a brain seeing without permission)

[Verse 1]
The woman in the ward has cortical blindness
V1 is dark — a blown fuse in the occipital
But ask her to walk the corridor
And she steps around the chair
That she swears she cannot see

She moves like a woman in a bias-cut gown
Navigating a cocktail party by instinct alone
The crystal decanters and the strangers' elbows
Avoided with the grace
Of someone reading a room
That her conscious mind insists is empty

[Pre-Chorus]
The superior colliculus — a census office
In the basement of the brainstem —
Is processing the geometry of obstacles
And delivering the results
As a feeling in the hips
A muscular suggestion
That has the damp weight
Of a rumour whispered
By a building to its own foundations

[Chorus]
(building — strings, trumpet, the mystery deepening)
Blindsight, blindsight
Tôi thấy mà không biết tôi thấy
I see without knowing I see
Blindsight, blindsight
The body reads the room
The mind reads nothing
And the nothing navigates perfectly

[Verse 2]
Imagine a waiting room
Where the walls are made of sight you cannot access
The chairs upholstered
In the static of a television
Tuned to your own optic nerve
And the receptionist files your vision
In a cabinet you will never be allowed to open
But your body has a key
Carved from hawthorn and old reflex
And the key works
And the cabinet opens into your legs
And your legs know the corridor by heart

[Chorus]
Blindsight, blindsight
Tôi thấy mà không biết tôi thấy
I see without knowing I see
Blindsight, blindsight
The body reads the room
The mind reads nothing
And the nothing navigates perfectly

[Bridge]
(everything drops — voice and cello drone)
Bà ngoại tôi nói — my grandmother said
The body sees first
The mind just writes the report

And the report is always late
And the report is always wrong
And the body has already left the building
By the time the mind stamps the paperwork

(muted trumpet — one phrase, noir, knowing)

She said this while stirring something
That smelled like the sound of knowing
Before you know you know
A tincture brewed from brambles
And the silence
Of a woman who has walked
Through every dark room in her life
Without once reaching for the light

Because the light was never the point
The walking was the point
And the walking always knew the way

[Outro]
(trumpet returns — confident now, navigating perfectly in the dark)
Blindsight
(softly, the village accent full)
Tôi thấy bằng cơ thể — I see with my body
Tôi đi bằng bóng tối — I walk with the dark
And the dark has always known the furniture
(trumpet fades — sure-footed, into a room that doesn't need light)