Working title “The Handler (Field Notes in the Static)”
## the ideas
- I’m not “[[Waiting for Superman (idea)]]” (by [[The Flaming Lips]]). I have always been [[The Handler]]
- I am standing at what feels like the only door that has ever existed because it’s the first one that I have noticed from the inside.
-
## the lyrics
Verse 1
Morning boots on broken light,
coffee tracing circuit lines
in a house that never sleeps quite right.
Names and keys and half-spun plans,
falling through my open hands—
I catch what I can, let the rest go by design.
Pre-Chorus
They think it’s calm, they think it’s ease,
they don’t see the undersea
of switching gears just to stay upright.
Every smile is load-bearing steel,
every joke a thinly sealed
compartment holding back the night.
Chorus
I am The Handler, I hold the drift,
patch the seams when the edges shift.
Not a hero, not a myth,
just a steady pair of hands in the rift.
If it breaks, I learn its name,
if it falls, I map the blame,
and I keep the system in motion anyway.
Verse 2
Emails like falling weather fronts,
memory like overloaded trunks,
I sort the storm into something I can name.
There’s a fire I don’t announce,
there’s a silence I can count,
there’s a cost I never put into the frame.
Pre-Chorus
And I’ve learned how to disappear
without ever leaving here,
just reduce the signal, keep it tight.
But even when I fade to grey,
somebody always finds my way
back to the center of the night.
Chorus
I am The Handler, I hold the drift,
hold the line when the systems split.
Not a savior, not equipped,
just a long endurance stitched in grit.
If it shakes, I stabilize,
if it cracks, I organize,
and I keep the whole thing moving anyway.
Bridge
And maybe no one ever sees
the weight behind the analog keys,
the quiet math of staying whole.
Not strength, not grace, not destiny—
just a practiced kind of alchemy
turning chaos into role.
Final Chorus
I am The Handler, I hold the drift,
not for glory, not for myth.
Just because someone has to sit
with the fault lines as they shift.
If it breaks, I’ll know its name,
if it falls, I’ll map the flame,
and I’ll keep the system in motion anyway.
Outro
Not Superman. Not relief.
Just the hands that hold belief
long enough for dawn to find its way.
--
CHL
The Handler