FILE_ID7
TIMESTAMPFEB 28, 2019 (THE CRASH)
SUBJECTEthel
Grief
Loss · rupture · inheritance of truth
Decoded Story
The two songs "Ride" and "Gotta Move" tell a single episode of Ethel's life.
When the "stock kids" slipped into easy crime, she stepped back. The school psychologists called her "withdrawn, non-compliant." They missed her why.
So, when she saw a real systemic harm, the grant fraud at her school, she acted. The system did what systems do. It protected itself. The teacher stayed. Ethel was expelled.
Then there was a second wall. The one that ended everything. Gran and Pop were gone...
Audio Transcript — Lyrics
[START_TRANSCRIPT]
Didn’t answer when they told me,
My tongue just stuck against my teeth.
Walked past cups and half-set tables,
Like the day hadn’t heard the grief.
Later I was near the shed or garage,
That whole stretch plays back blurred.
Small steel key where it shouldn’t be,
And I knew without a word.
Don’t light a candle, don’t play that hymn.
Don’t speak in lines they wrote for them.
I know the point my life dropped through,
I just won’t break where others do.
Took the bike out, don’t recall distance,
Just heat and strips of road.
Bank vault room smelled cold and empty,
Metal tray slid out, too loaded.
Unmarked pages, names Gran tracked,
Dates that never reached the news.
AFP number on one corner,
Clear as if she’d drawn a fuse.
Called from the curb with my hands shaking,
Engine ticking down beside.
Older voice picked up, said my first name,
Then said Gran’s like someone died.
Read out lines the way they were written,
He went quiet on one, then, “Go on.”
Asked if anyone knew I was calling,
Said, “Stay in sight. Don’t stay alone.”
Don’t light a candle, don’t stage the scene.
Don’t write me soft in the in-between.
I’m not the tears they wish they saw,
I’m not the myth they mourned me for.
If I look still, it’s bracing, not calm.
If I look gone, I’m running the facts.
Every gap, each missing line,
Showed the shape of what attacked.
I didn’t sort out labs or land,
Let the papers go to those who knew.
One backpack took the keys and records,
Left the rest for a later view.
They talked “placement” and “next of kin,”
Like I wasn’t part of what they planned.
By then I’d already marked my contact,
One number sitting in my hand.
I don’t wear grief like a costume piece,
It cuts, but I still move through.
When it hits and everything tilts sideways,
I use that jolt to see what’s true.