Isolate Phase

[Verse 1]
Sunoco pump handle, cold through the glove, 3:18 on the dash
Kid in a gray '04 Civic, just a flash of a face, asking me fast
"Man, you're 'Grave,' right? Can I get a flick for the 'gram?"
His phone screen so cracked that the light made a diagram
On the oil-slick asphalt, I nod, pose up, I go through the motions
He's buzzing, a high-frequency current, lost in his own devotions
I smell the chicory from the cup in my ride, mixin' with fumes in the air
He says my name back to me, Lana, like I wasn't already there.

[Chorus]
And the light from his flash hit the sign, made a halo of rust
Lana, this is the signal gain, turning gold into dust
It don't feel like we drew it on napkins, that blueprint of trust
This is just a new anode, a different kind of combust.

[Verse 2]
I'm back on the interstate, ghosting the lines, pedal-steel starts to cry
The kid just uploaded the picture, caption 'a real fucking guy'
And I'm staring at pixels of me, a stranger I'm supposed to be
Another component slotted inside of some bigger machinery
I remember you tracing the circuits on that busted schematic we found
Said we'd build it all different, a whole other sound from the ground
Now my name is a search term, my face is a node on the grid
And I can't find the ground wire for the person I hid.

[Chorus]
And the light from the dash hits my face, makes a halo of rust
Lana, this is the signal gain, turning gold into dust
You see the numbers go up, but you don't see the cost
This ain't winning, it's just getting publicly lost.

[Bridge]
He said, "Man, 'Iron Inertia' is what got me through."
A closed-circuit compliment, Lana, what do you do?
When the schematic you wrote to escape from the dark
Just becomes someone else's identical spark?

[Chorus]
And the light from the streetlamps above makes a halo of rust
Lana, this is the signal gain, turning gold into dust
This is the waveform we wanted, the peak and the trough
But the power feels hollow, it's never enough.

[Outro]
The camera flash is still printed behind my eyes.
A bright white corrosion. A public disguise.