Song 97: Pet

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
You don't know my name
You know the sound of my car
And the particular frequency of the door
And that's better than a name
That's a whole religion built from one repeated proof
That the sound means I came back

The caudate nucleus lights up in your brain
The same as mine — we checked
Same architecture, different tenant
You love me with the same hardware
That I use to love Debussy
And you have never once
Asked me to explain why

[Pre-Chorus]
And the absence of why
Is the entire thing
The whole cathedral built
Without a single question
In the foundation

[Chorus]
Mon petit amour, mon petit amour
The love with no language and no conditions
Mon petit amour, mon petit amour
You loved me on the days I didn't earn it
You loved me with your whole body
Which is the only way you know
And the neuroscience says loyalty
But I think the neuroscience is thinking too slow

[Verse 2]
You're getting gray around the edges now
The muzzle tells the story
That the tail still argues with
Twelve years in dog
Is the whole history of devotion
Compressed into a format
That fits on the couch

The ventral striatum doesn't know
That twelve years is not enough
The bonding circuit doesn't have a calendar
It just has: here, here, here, here, here
Every morning the same referendum
And every morning the same landslide result
You — again — still — yes

[Pre-Chorus]
And the still and the yes
Is the part I can't say
To the humans I love
With my complicated mammalian mouth
You say it with your whole spine
Every time I reach for my keys

[Chorus]
Mon petit amour, mon petit amour
The love with no language and no conditions
Mon petit amour, mon petit amour
You loved me on the days I didn't earn it
You loved me with your whole body
Which is the only way you know
And the neuroscience says loyalty
But I think the neuroscience is thinking too slow

[Bridge]
The grief will come
I know the math
Your calendar is shorter than mine
And one afternoon
The sound of my car will fill the driveway
And the house will hear it
And the house will not
Get up


And I will learn what the research already knows
That the nucleus accumbens
Doesn't distinguish
Between species
When it processes the missing

You were never a pet
You were a thesis
On love
Without footnotes

[Outro]
Mon petit amour
Good dog