The Body Voted First (Eros)

Lyrics

[Verse 1 — Sisukiro]
Before the name
Before the restaurant
Before the Tuesday
That would become
All the Tuesdays
There was a moment
That my body registered
And my mind
Did not attend

The pupils dilated
Point three millimetres
Which is the standard response
To a stimulus
The autonomic system
Has classified
As worth investigating
Point three millimetres
Is not a choice
Point three millimetres
Is the body
Casting its vote
Before the election
Has been announced
And the body
Voted yes
And the body
Has never been wrong
About this
Except for every time
It has been wrong
About this
Which is most of the time
But the wrongness
Has never stopped
The voting
And the voting
Is eros
And eros
Is older than the person
It happens to

[Verse 2 — Orikusis]
Before the name
Before the river
Before the mango
That I would carry
For twenty years
In a mouth
That remembers
One specific sweetness
There was a moment
That my skin registered
And my grandmother
Would have called it
The weather changing
Inside a room
That has no weather

A man laughed
Across a table
I had planned to leave
And the laugh
Rearranged the room
Not the furniture
The room itself
The walls moved
Half a centimetre
Toward the laugh
And I moved
Half a centimetre
Toward the laugh
And the half centimetre
Was the most honest distance
I have ever travelled
Because I did not decide
To travel it
My body
Decided
And my body
Does not speak French
Or Vietnamese
Or any language
That has a word for what it did
My body speaks
Only in centimetres
And in the direction
Of the laugh

[Pre-Chorus]
This is not love yet
Love comes later
Love has a Tuesday
And a wrong coffee
And a pen that turns four times
This is before love
This is the match
Before the fire
Before the fire
Knows it is a fire
This is the sulphur
On the strip
And the strip
Is every nerve
You own
And the sulphur
Is the laugh
Or the pupil
Or the half centimetre
And the striking
Is involuntary
And the involuntary
Is the oldest thing
About you

[Chorus]
L'amour éros, l'amour éros
The body voted first and the body voted yes
L'amour éros, l'amour éros
Before the name
Before the language
Before the mind
Had time to file
Its reasonable objections
The body crossed
A centimetre
It was not asked to cross
And the crossing
Is the beginning
Of every love
On this album
And every love
That has ever started
In any century
In any language
In any room
Where someone laughed
And the walls moved
And the pupils
Said yes
Before the person
Said anything at all

[Bridge — both]
Eros does not knock
Eros was already inside
When you checked the door
Eros is the guest
Who arrived before the party
And rearranged the furniture
And you walked in
And thought
I don't remember
Putting that there
And you were right
You didn't
The body put it there
While you were deciding
What to wear

Bà ngoại says
The body knows
Before the priest
Before the parents
Before the village
Has given its opinion
The body already left
The body is already
At the river
The body
Is already taking
The mango

And Sisukiro says
The body knows
Before the cortex
Before the committee
Before the paper
Has been reviewed
The pupils already dilated
The autonomic system
Already voted
The data
Is already compromised
And the compromise
Is the most human thing
The data has ever done

[Outro]
This is Song 1
And we don't know yet
What comes after
We don't know about the Tuesday
Or the coffee
Or the locker
Or the eleven inches
Or the weight
That arrives on a Wednesday
Or the game with no score
Or the river
Or the mango tree
That stayed
Or the grandmother
Who will speak once
And say everything

We don't know any of it yet
We only know this
The body voted
And the body voted yes
And the album
Starts here
With the yes
Before the question
Was asked

L'amour éros
The yes
Before the question
The centimetre
Before the name
The match
Before the fire
The first song
Before the hundred

Begin