The Photographs Keep Aging

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
She's been dead for six years
And I still dial the first three digits
Before the hand remembers
What the heart refuses to file
The motor memory
Has not been briefed
The motor memory
Still lives in the apartment
Where she answered on the second ring
And said my name
The way only she said it
With the accent on the wrong syllable
That became the right syllable
Because she said it enough times
To overwrite the dictionary
And the dictionary is wrong now
And she is the reason it's wrong
And I will not correct it
The wrong syllable
Is the most accurate thing
Left of her
In my mouth
[Pre-Chorus]
The nucleus accumbens
Still fires
When I hear her name
The same reward signal
As when she was alive
The brain does not distinguish
Between the living and the beloved dead
The reward is for the person
Not the pulse
And the person
Is still installed
In the architecture
Six years after
The architecture
Lost its tenant
[Chorus]
Les photos vieillissent, les photos vieillissent
The photographs keep aging but the face stays thirty-nine
Les photos vieillissent, les photos vieillissent
And I keep getting older
And the distance between us
Is not years anymore
It's a direction
She went still
And I kept moving
And the moving
Is the grief
Because the grief
Is not the missing
The grief is the continuing
Without permission
To stop
[Verse 2]
I talk to her on Thursdays
Not because Thursday was special
Thursday was the day we happened to start
And habit
Is a stronger architect than meaning
And the conversation is one-sided
Which she would find hilarious
Because when she was alive
It was also one-sided
Just the other direction
And she is laughing somewhere
At the symmetry
Which is exactly her kind of joke
I tell her about the bread
And the news
And the thing the neighbour said
About the pigeons
And she says nothing
And the nothing
Is differently shaped
Than the nothing
Of someone who isn't there
Her nothing
Has furniture in it
Her nothing
Is a room I visit
That still smells like her kitchen
Which smelled like cardamom
And the opinion
That dessert should come first
[Pre-Chorus]
The default mode network
Activates when we think about people we love
Whether they're alive or not
The brain runs the same simulation
The same model of the person
Predicting what they'd say
What they'd think
Of the bread and the pigeons
And the neighbour
And the simulation
Is so accurate
That sometimes
On a Thursday
In the kitchen
I hear the accent
On the wrong syllable
And for a quarter of a second
She is alive
And the quarter of a second
Is worth
Every Thursday
For the rest
Of whatever this is
[Chorus]
Les photos vieillissent, les photos vieillissent
The photographs keep aging but her face stays thirty-nine
Les photos vieillissent, les photos vieillissent
Và tôi vẫn nói chuyện với chị ấy
And I still talk to her
On Thursdays
About the bread
About the pigeons
About the neighbour
And she says nothing
That is shaped like her
And the shape
Is enough
Most Thursdays
The shape is enough
[Bridge]
Here is the thing
They don't tell you about grief
It doesn't diminish
It just gets a longer hallway
The same one from the forgiveness song
But here the hallway
Leads to the same room
And the room
Is always occupied
And the person in the room
Is always thirty-nine
And always laughing
About the dessert
And you walk the hallway
Less often in year six
Than year one
But when you arrive
The room is exactly
The same temperature
And the temperature
Is the love
And the love
Did not get the memo
About the death
And never will
And the never will
Is not a bug
It's the only feature
That makes any of this
Bearable
[Outro]
Les photos vieillissent
The wrong syllable
The Thursday kitchen
The cardamom
The dessert first
She would have liked this song
She would have said
It's too long
And she'd be right
And I'd argue
And the argument
Would last until Thursday
Which is tomorrow
Which is always tomorrow