Instructions for Dissolution (In D Major)

I. Begin With Resonance

Stand in the room where you first learned

To keep your softness tightly turned.

Clap once. Listen for the lie.

If the echo doesn’t cry,

Let the note decay.

II. Choose Your Instrument

Take the voice they trained in you,

That brass-barreled, breaking-through.

Wear it one last time with grace,

Like a suit that’s not your place.

Fold your name into the case.

Close it.

Let it leave no trace.

Let the note decay.

III. Dampen Your Frequencies

Unpack the weight behind your chest.

Breathe into what never fit best.

Lift your vowels. Let them glide.

Speak as though you never lied.

If someone calls the name he bore,

Don’t look back. Not anymore.

Let the note decay.

IV. Practice the Fugue

Repeat his laugh. Then let it crack

Repeat again - this time, hold back.

You are not him, not his refrain.

You are the silence he couldn’t name.

Wear lipstick. Flinch. Wear it again.

Let mascara teach you when.

Let the note decay.

V. Modulate

Change your name in secret first.

Let it bloom inside your purse.

Change your shirt. Then change your stance.

Let your hips learn how to dance.

If they watch, do not explain.

They don’t know what it means to contain.

Speak in chords that stretch the rules.

Relearn your body. Reclaim the tools.

Let the note decay.

VI. Interlude

Feel the ache behind your ribs.

Count the pills. Unfold the fibs.

Trace the scar the razor left

When you learned what ‘girl’ meant in your breath.

You were never just disguise

You were the truth behind his eyes.

Let the note decay.

VII. Coda

Let them say you disappeared.

Let them say it:

“She was never here.”

Let them mourn the man you killed.

Let them marvel at your will.

But you –

You will hum, and not explain.

You will dance inside your name.

A new key, a softer sway.

Not erased,

Just rearranged.

Let the note decay.

Let her stay.