[Intro]
Floating through the padded room blues
Water in my lungs but the jazz still grooves
[Hook]
I’m drowning in the ward pool, chlorine in my scars
Chopper in my heartbeat counting every bar
But the circle keeps on turning, ripple never stops
So I float, I float, I float till the pain drops
Ward pool, ward pool, psycho learning how to swim
If I sink tonight at least the jazz goes down with him
[Verse 1]
Admitted on a gurney, wrists zip-tied symphony
Order lies in harmony, force-feeding symphonies
Thorazine serenade, needle drip melody
Mind split into sixteen pieces, every shard still spitting heat
Childhood closet monsters traded for concrete posture
Doctor say I lost her, I say I never got her
Electroshock waltz across the tiles, one-two convulse
Voltage in my pulse, writing scripture in the jolts
Diagnosed with everything they sell in white coats
But the chart can’t read the pain I wrote in invisible notes
I’m the glitch inside the system, rapid-fire wisdom
Spitting through the prism till the trauma start to glisten
[Hook]
I’m drowning in the ward pool, chlorine in my scars
Chopper in my heartbeat counting every bar
But the circle keeps on turning, ripple never stops
So I float, I float, I float till the pain drops
Ward pool, ward pool, psycho learning how to swim
If I sink tonight at least the jazz goes down with him
[Verse 2]
Morning group therapy, circle of broken halos
Trading war stories like baseball cards from different ghettos
One dude lost his kid, another lost his shadow
I just nod and count the ceiling tiles like piano pedals
Therapist say breathe, I exhale razor wire
She say let it go, I let it go and set the room on fire
Not literally, figuratively, imagery vividly
Burning every maybe till the smoke spell out forgive me
Then the meds kick, time stretch like taffy
Voices turn to saxophone, walls start to laugh with me
Reality bend, Jon Brion in my IV
Floating above the bed watching me watch me
[Bridge]
Close my eyes, see blue tiles turn to open sky
Scars on my arms become wings when the chorus arrives
Maybe crazy just means the volume too high
Maybe healing is learning to float instead of fight
[Verse 3]
Back in the day homeless spitting for quarters
Now institutional famous, they record my disorders
Turn my mania to metrics, my tears into quarters
But the pen still lethal, lethal injection of borders
I break every boundary they draw with chalk lines
Chalk outlines of the me that they thought died
But I survived, revived, jazz in my lifeline
Every breakdown a breakdown in 7/8 time
They say slow down, I say this is my tempo
Demons doing double-time, I match em bar for bar crescendo
Till the voices harmonize instead of argue
Till the ward pool feels like baptism instead of gargle
[Final Hook]
I was drowning in the ward pool, chlorine in my scars
Chopper was my heartbeat tearing nights apart
But the circle kept on turning, taught me how to glide
Now I float, I float, I float with the tide
Ward pool, ward pool, psycho finally swims
When I rise tonight the jazz comes up with him
[Outro – Rhodes solo fading into water drip echo]
Float… float… till the pain drops
Float… float… jazz never stops