[INTRO, sparse, almost spoken, single tone underneath] My script was written before I knew I was reading from one.
[VERSE, intimate, plain, the script forming] It came from outside of me. From looks. From tones. From what was said and what was withheld.
Somewhere along the way it formed into something simple.
I feel too big. I think too much. I am too much.
I am bad.
And once the script is written you don’t question it. You cast your life around it.
I chose places that confirmed it. Work that reinforced it. Friends. Partners. Dynamics that echoed it back to me.
Over and over.
I am bad so you can hurt me. You hurt me because I am bad.
And the strangest part — it feels like truth. Because everything around you agrees.
[VERSE, the split, the exhaustion underneath] So I learned to split.
Keep the bad parts hidden. Perform the good parts loudly. Be useful. Be needed. Be patient. Be kind.
But this goodness has conditions. It has an audience. And it’s fragile.
Because the moment I slip — the moment I’m not kind not patient not selfless enough — something old comes rushing back.
I am bad. But I will act good.
One performing. One hiding. Neither one fully here.
[PRE-CHORUS, the exhaustion landing] Can’t feel. Reacting. Can’t connect. Performing connection.
Until I can’t anymore.
[CHORUS, DROP into tension, the split named viscerally] I am good. I am bad. I am good. I am bad. Both scripts. Same body. Same breath. Same moment. Performing one. Hiding one. Believing neither. Same hands. Same chest. Same breath. Splitting. Splitting. And running. And running.
[VERSE, the collapse] Eventually something cracks. Not all at once. Just enough.
Am I bad?
But when you don’t know how to leave the script you just flip the roles.
I am good. You are bad. I am a victim. It feels like freedom at first. Like finally being on the right side of the story.
But it’s still a script. Still dependent. Still shaped by something outside of me.
And when even that stops working — everything gets very quiet.
No script to follow. No role to play. No one left to confirm who I am.
Just me.
Alone. Uncertain. But this time something is different.
This time I stay.
[PRE-CHORUS, the turn inward] Not good. Not bad. Just this.
The performance drops. Not into something better. Into something truer.
Something underneath all of this was never split. Something underneath all of this was never reading from a script.
[CHORUS, DROP into stillness, spacious, integration landing quietly] I am not the script. I am not the split. I am not the performance or the thing it was hiding.
I am the one who was watching the whole time.
Presence. Remembering something it had almost forgotten.
Not good. Not bad. Not performing. Not hiding.
Just here. Just this. Just here.
[OUTRO, the ground settling] My script is mine now.
Not because the world agrees. But because I stopped asking it to.
I am goodness. Not trying to believe it. Just living from it.
Just here. Just this. Just here.
AlchemistEthereal252
