Crown of Quiet Joy

[Verse 1]
Tongue tastes rust
Teeth grind dust from the past life
I trace old scars
Like rosary beads for a lost crime
Mirror on the floor
Face in fragments
I count them
Every crack a promise
That I’ll never really mend
[Chorus]
I wear a crown of quiet joy
It cuts my skin
I let it
I’m scared of what I could destroy
If I ever really felt it
So pull me down
Beneath the waves
Where nothing gold can happen
I’m terrified of better days
So I kneel before my habits
[Verse 2]
Your voice in my head
Like a sermon that never ends
Every sweet word
Turns to salt on my tongue again
I build small cages
Name them “comfort”
Call it home
I’ll chain my hands
Before I ever walk alone
[Chorus]
[Bridge]
[low vocal register]
What if it works?
What if it stays?
What if the sun
Doesn’t burn my face?
[whispered vocals]
What if I laugh
And it feels okay?
What if that light
Takes my pain away?
[crescendo]
I choke it out
I starve the spark
I drag my hope
Back into the dark
[Chorus]

metal, Crushing sludge riffs welded to a brooding string orchestra and low brass. Male vocals, rasping and desperate in the verses, exploding into a tortured, half-sung chant in the chorus. Tempos drag with choking weight; choir and violins bloom in the hook while guitars drone like a storm. Sparse toms in the bridge, then everything slams back in for a final, suffocating refrain., sludge metal