The Gaze That Stays

*[Verse 1]* The window doesn't break. It holds the way a hand holds water - open, aware, already letting go. I watched you through it for an hour before I understood I was the one being watched.

*[Verse 2]* The street has eyes I never planted. Every lamppost learns my walk. Every taxi meter counts the minutes I have left before the test comes back, before the sea remembers it was never looking at me.

*[Chorus]* The gaze that stays is not the glance. The glance forgives. The gaze remains the way a stain remains on plaster after the rain - not damage, exactly. Evidence.

*[Verse 3]* I cut my hair into the sink and thought about a man who read my life from how I held the cup. He saw the marriage, the dull town, the dog. He didn't need to ask.

*[Verse 4]* At the automat, the coffee cools. The window doubles every light into a row of copies, none of which are me, and all of which are watching. I am the woman at the table. I am the table. I am the light that will not leave.

*[Bridge]* There is no place that does not see you. The torso has no head and every inch of it is looking. The stone is lit from somewhere I can't locate. The brilliance doesn't need a face. The brilliance is the face.

*[Outro]* You must change your life. Not because the statue asked. Because the window held and held and held and you were on the other side and you were on the other side and you were on the other side.