The Unravelling Room

[Verse 1]
The Home Office letter, Tuesday, quarter-to-three.
The faint scent of petrichor on your coat next to me.
A taxonomy of waiting, in this fluorescent haze,
Each tick of the clock just unwinds the days.

[Chorus]
And oh, Maya, it's a curious thing,
The way they test the tension on a well-worn string.
This grief, a dye that doesn't bleed or run,
Just settles in the fiber when the day is done.

[Verse 2]
He looked at the form, didn't look at my face.
The cold nylon of the queue rope left its trace.
He said, "Wait by the cord," like the cord was a wall,
And a new kind of silence just covered it all.

[Chorus]
And oh, Maya, it's a curious thing,
The way they test the tension on a well-worn string.
This grief, a dye that doesn't bleed or run,
Just settles in the fiber when the day is done.

[Bridge]
One thread from Trinidad, one from the slate-grey rain,
I feel them pulling on the very same skein.
A pattern he knew, in a language I've lost.

[Outro]
(Music fades to complete silence for 3-5 seconds)
(Music returns: sparse Rhodes, pads, and a single, distant bell sample)

The four o'clock bells from St Mary Redcliffe...
Did you hear them too?