[Intro] Neon on my cheek like a bruise from heaven, I’m breathing in the hum of the avenue, close to the mic, like I’m confessing to a secret. Mm… don’t leave yet. [Verse 1] Midnight folds its silk around my shoulders, traffic praying in the key of red and blue, your shadow in the window like a promise I can’t hold, and I’m too awake to lie, too tired to be true. I came here wearing confidence like cologne, but underneath, baby, I’m all exposed— the bass in the floor, the smoke in my throat, and a little black hole where my courage goes. [Rap Section] Look— I’m in the city with a split-heart, lit up, bit sharp, lip marked, wrist scarred, still trying to play the big part. Sip the rim, spin the night, then I drift hard, body on the beat while my mind do the glitch art. Kick— Kick— Kick in my ribs— Fuego in the chest, but the face stay cold, I been sold to the glow, I been told “stay bold,” so I grin at the demons in a chrome-lit row, but I know what they want when they lean too close. I’m a saint in the club, I’m a wolf in a prayer, I’m a lustful little lie with a knife in the air. Drums go dum-dum, heart go gone, I don’t want peace, I want one more song. Move like a warning, talk like a wound, kiss me in the dark, let the night consume— I been running from the mirror, from the memory, from the moon, if I catch my own eyes, I might split clean through. [Pre-Chorus] And I feel it rising— floor bending under me, sub bass like an elevator cable snapping— like a hand on my throat, like a choir in the wires, like the room turning holy with the heat of my fire. Tell me I’m wanted, tell me I’m wrong, tell me the prayer inside the bassline’s strong. [Chorus] Take me higher than the neon can forgive, I’m shaking, I’m shining, I don’t know how to live. Love me like trouble, hold me like rain, I’m beautiful when I’m breaking, I’m dangerous again. Oh—city of mouths, city of smoke, I came here to dance, now I’m choking on hope. If I go down, let the rhythm still ring, I was a body for a minute, I was almost a thing. [Verse 2] I saw my reflection in a bottle of wine, soft little tremor in the line of my spine, you said, “Come closer,” and the room leaned in, and my loneliness answered with a velvet grin. There’s a church in my ribs and a drum in my teeth, there’s a fire in my blood and a tremble beneath— I wear all my hunger like a gold chain halo, but it drags when I run, and I can’t let it go. Your laugh hit me slow like a hand on the waist, your eyes said “stay” while your mouth said “taste,” and I did—God help me, I did— now the whole damn night is a blade I live in. Outside, the taxis hiss, the skyline bleeds, inside, I’m the rumor that nobody needs, and I keep on performing for the ghosts in the glass, for the version of me that was never built to last. [Jazz/Salsa Breakdown] Ay, mami, the trumpet bends like a body in flame, the congas speak my name, speak my shame, cuidao— I’m swaying, I’m slipping, I’m sweetly undone, círculo de sombra under the club lights, one by one. Step to the left, breathe to the right, I’m a little too tender for this kind of night. Ay, qué rico, qué cruel, how the rhythm can hold all the ice in my veins and the ache in my soul— baila conmigo, don’t ask what’s wrong, just let the bassline kiss me and carry me along. [Collapse Section] NO NO NO— DON’T LOOK AT ME WHEN I TURN INTO STATIC— Aaaaaaaaa— Black glass sky, I spit my soul at the moon, city becomes a wound, and the wound becomes a rune. I am the torn-down altar, the feral, the blind, the animal prayer in the back of my mind. No light— No love— No name— No skin— only the howl of the wire and the crack I’m in. I claw at the silence, I burn in the chrome, I was searching for heaven and found a blade called home. Aaaaa— tear the pretty face from the machine, let the nightmare sing through the static between. I am falling, I am falling, I am all that I fear, and the night keeps laughing with my own voice near. [Gospel-like Final Chorus] Oh Lord, if You’re listening through the bass and the smoke, I’m a trembling man with a heart half broke. But still I sing, still I rise in pain, still I reach for mercy in the neon rain. Take me as I am, with the dirt and the flame, with the want and the wound and the borrowed name. Hallelujah, hallelujah, don’t let me go— I was lost in the party, now I’m falling slow. Hallelujah, hallelujah, in my ruin I sing, I was nothing but hunger, now I’m offering everything. [Outro] Mm… the room fades out. One last kick of the drum. Breath on glass. Then silence.
