Motions

LYRICS

🎵 GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS 🎵

(A Round)

[bell synth, plucks and clap instrumental plays mysteriously for two measures]

Intro – soft finger claps, slightly off

One, two, three, four…

Verse 1 – She

Go, go, go through the motions

She drags her chair across the tile

The wheels complain in little circles

She calls that progress for a while

She renames files with careful fingers

Adds “final” twice, then “final-really”

Leaves one comment in the margin:

“Feels unclear.” It lands gently.

Count off

One, two, ready, go—

Verse 2 – They

Go, go, go through the motions

They mute themselves and nod in time

The glow of laptops in their glasses

Makes their faces look like mime

They trim a paragraph by inches

Swap two bullets, smooth the tone

Leave it slightly less confusing

Close the tab and head back home

Count off – brighter

And a one, and a two—

Verse 3 – You

Go, go, go through the motions

You straighten frames that hang askew

Shift a pixel, move a comma

No one knows it was you

You stay five minutes past the ending

Reword something sharp to kind

It will never make a headline

But it will ease somebody’s mind

Count off – softer

Three, four…

Verse 4 – We

Go, go, go through the motions

We pass the document around

Each of us removes one splinter

Till it’s safer to be found

We are not the bold revision

We are not the thunderclap

We are sanding down the edges

Of a slightly jagged map

Coda – I

Go, go, go through the motions

I clear my throat and hit “send”

Better than it was before me

That’s the joke and that’s the end

Motions, motions, motions, motions

That’s the quiet thing we do

Not a monument — a nudge

Just a little less askew