Small Empires · Album · Track 4
9 Aug 2026 · 4:28 · Synth-pop · 177 plays
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Lyrics
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Nothing broken. Nothing thrown.
No neighbour ever heard a thing.
Just a temperature that dropped
and a man who answers in four words.
There is no bruise to photograph.
There is no sentence to repeat.
That's the elegance of it —
it cannot be described to anyone.
And the quiet one gets to be the calm one.
That's the whole engine of it —
Quiet isn't peace. (isn't peace)
It's a fist that leaves no mark.
It's a sentence with no crime.
I would take the shouting
over being disappeared —
quiet isn't peace. (isn't peace)
His father did it. His father's father.
Three generations of a cold front
moving through the same few rooms
and everyone calling it manners.
Children raised in that country
learn the language before they can walk,
and they marry, and they teach it,
and they never once raise their voice.
It costs the one who does it nothing.
It costs the other one their footing —
It's a war with no reporting.
You make me guess, then charge me.
And I have been fluent in it
since before I had the words —
I am not asking you to solve it.
One sentence. Any sentence.
Even "I can't do this yet."
That's a sentence. That'll do.
So be angry with the lights on.
I can survive your anger.
And if you need a year, then take it —
just say aloud you're taking it,
and break the thing your father handed you.
Say a word. (say a word)
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