Noon Liturgy

[Verse 1]
The water heater kicks on at 3:17 A.M.
Same time that the plaque from the label starts humming again.
The weight of it presses the nail in the drywall, a dull little ache,
same kind of pressure that's keeping my tired damn pupils awake.
My nervous system's a rhizome, a tangle of wire and dread,
creeping under the floorboards and sprouting inside of my head.
I catalogue cracks in the ceiling, a map of some miserable state,
while the life that I wanted is waiting outside of the gate.

[Chorus]
Oh, black-draped quiet, I built you a house with a spare key.
They callin' me queen of the city, but my own nerves won't spare me.
Yeah, I got the world in my palm, a thing that I can't hold for long.
I'm praying this noon liturgy, just tryna survive till the dawn.

[Verse 2]
Remember when sleep was a blanket I stole from my mama's bed?
Felt like pluff mud and bleach, now it's blue light and code in my head.
Doctor in Buckhead said, "Try chamomile," his pen on the pad,
a five-hundred-dollar suggestion for a peace I ain't ever had.
I'm tracing the scar on my knee from that fall off the pier down on Tybee,
'fore the articles dropped, 'fore the comments were calling me grimy.
Back when a full eight hours was something you didn't have to earn,
just a chapter you closed, not a lesson the body won't learn.

[Spoken-Word Interlude]
(Voicemail recording, distant, staticky)
"Delilah, baby, you call me when you get this. Just... wanted to hear you breathe. Heard the song on the radio drivin' over the Talmadge. You sound tired, is all."

[Verse 3]
So this is the victory lap? This thrumming behind my two eyes?
This hollowed-out feeling that no amount of money can disguise?
I count every dollar, I count every stream, I count every blessin' they send,
but the only arithmetic matters is how many hours till morning begins.
They wanted the specimen pinned, the Lowcountry flower displayed,
and I gave 'em the stem and the stamen, the parts of me carefully flayed.
Now Audrey the Third gets more sleep than the woman who waters her soil,
a carnivorous joke 'bout the nature of ceaseless and desperate toil.

[Outro]
Just one REM cycle. Lord, one hour.
My kingdom for one quiet hour.