No Manual

{warm muted electric guitar picking,

clean dry bass, organic room drums setting

steady 108 BPM tempo} I know the sound when something's wearing out,

I hear the difference others don't pick out.

Give me the problem,

give me some time,

I'll follow every fault until I find the line.

I've spent whole nights chasing one small sign,

one loose connection hiding out of sight.

There's always a reason,

always something underneath, at least that's what the world has taught me

to believe. If it breaks,

I pull it apart.

If it fails, I find where to start.

But when the warning light is somewhere in my chest,

I don't know what to test.

{snare drum building tension,

rising electric guitar swells}

There's no manual for me,

no diagram to read.

No red light telling me

which part is underneath.

I can fix what I can see,

I can trace it to the source.

But when the fault is somewhere inside me,

I don't know where to look anymore.

There's no manual

for me. I'm good at keeping everything alive,

making broken pieces work another night.

Someone needs an answer,

somehow I find a way,

patch it up and keep the whole thing running through the day.

And maybe that's why nobody can tell

when I'm running rough myself.

I learned to keep the noise behind the walls,

keep moving like there's nothing wrong at all.

I know when a motor's pushed too hard,

when something's running close to falling apart.

Funny how I hear those signs everywhere— except when they're mine to

bear. {snare drum building tension,

rising electric guitar swells} Maybe I'm not something broken.

Maybe there's no fault to find.

Maybe every scar and question

doesn't need a reason why.

Maybe some things can't be measured,

can't be numbered, can't be proved.

Maybe I don't need the answers before I make the next move.

{drums drop out, soft Rhodes piano and ambient clean guitar}

There's no manual for me,

and maybe that's alright.

No perfect set of instructions to get me through the night.

I still fix what I can see,

still follow every clue.

But I don't have to understand myself the way I understand a

screw.

There's no manual for me,

no drawing showing where to go.

I'm still learning as I'm living— maybe that's enough to know.

{explosive full band entry,

powerful driving

rhythm, massive guitars} No manual.

No perfect plan. Just another day

doing the best I can.

{acoustic guitar fades out,

soft mechanical ticking clock sound stops}