I Set the Lamp to Half (Melancholy)

Lyrics

The house is asleep.
But I'm not.
The switch makes a soft click.
Not on. Not off.
Just... half.

The dust makes a slow dance in the cone of weak light.
From the chair to the rug.
No one's coming.
No one's gone.
Robert Burton called it a dotage without a fever.
Fear and sadness, with no real occasion.
The tea is cold in the mug.
The window is a black mirror.

And I set the lamp to half.
Because the whole light would be a lie.
And the dark...
the dark is too much to ask.
So I live here.
In the amber.
In the quiet sigh.

On the table, the book is open to page one sixty-one.
*The Anatomy of Melancholy*.
The year is 1621 again.
And Dürer's hourglass is on my wall.
I watch the sand fall.
A grain for every breath.
I feel the weight of his angel's head in her hand.
Staring at a shape with too many sides.

And I set the lamp to half.
Because the whole light would be a lie.
And the dark...
the dark is too much to ask.
So I live here.
In the amber.
In the quiet sigh.

This isn't new.
This is old bile.
Black, they said.
From some Greek courtyard.
This is the magic square adding up to thirty-four.
In the year fifteen-fourteen.
The numbers are perfect.
And the problem is still unsolved.
The world keeps turning at full speed.

I just...
set the lamp to half.
And wait for the light to change.
Or not.