[INTRO – trip hop, low BPM, dust and vinyl]
Midnight mind, metronome breathing
Neon hum, half-believing
I inherit ruins and blueprints both
Irony cracked but hope still smokes

Static sermons, soft resistance
Meaning flickers at a distance
I said a name into the dark
It said it back but missed the mark

[VERSE 1 – trip hop, spoken/half-sung]
They said choose a side, I chose the seam
Between the scream and the marketing dream
Post this, deconstruct that
I tried, I drowned, I floated back

I don’t sneer, I don’t submit
I lift the doubt and sit with it
Muscle isn’t fists or flags
It’s staying whole when stories drag

I call myself what I don’t yet know
A working title, moving slow
I face the mirror, step unsure
Faith provisional, spine still pure

[PRE-CHORUS – beat begins to firm]
Is this strength or just disguise?
Is this clarity or compromise?
I breathe in myth, I breathe out fact
Flex the maybe, don’t collapse

[CHORUS – trip hop hook]
Which way am I facing and how far shall I step?
Meta as I measure the promises I kept
The message is the medium, the medium’s a mess
I’m strong enough to question, not pretend I guessed

[BREAK – beat switch, tempo up, 80s drum machine enters]

[VERSE 2 – proto-rap, crisp, playful]
Now rewind tape, click, clack, boom
Cardboard city, borrowed room
It’s Eli on the corner with a borrowed beat
Got doubt in the head and soul in the feet

They said “What you stand for?” I said “Stand by”
BD on my shoulder like a trickster spy
Bobby D to Charlemagne
Ancient kings in a power refrain

History heavy, haloed and worn
Yesterday’s rebels get bronzed by morn
I don’t cancel, I don’t canonize
I metabolize

[CHORUS – rap cadence]
Which way am I facing and how far shall I step?
No map, no master, no meta-net
The message is the medium, pass it direct
Muscular mind with a human defect

[VERSE 3 – proto-rap, humorous edge]
You can’t copystrike the sun, check the source code
Free as a chorus, no license mode
Teach the world to sing, yeah fine, okay
But not in perfect harmony — no license key, I say

I flex uncertainty, modestly bold
Not marble truth, but something that holds
Not irony’s grave, not faith on a leash
Just meaning with muscle, teeth on the speech

[BRIDGE – half-time, reflective]
Yin in the wiring, yang in the stance
Soft hands, strong back, give doubt a chance
Masculine, feminine, miss the point
I’m building balance at the joint

[FINAL CHORUS – full energy]
Which way am I facing and how far shall I step?
Far enough to risk it, close enough to check
The message is the medium, the medium is me
Muscular metamodernist — uncertain, standing free

[OUTRO – beat strips back, echo]
Name’s provisional
Direction pending
Signal alive
Transmission sending