Story: No standard issue awakening
Verse 1
Jonah watched old Maeve laughing
like she hadn’t got a care.
Thought said:
“When you’ve really got it,
you’ll be just like her.”
Maeve saw the ruler
before he saw it too.
She said:
“Why should fifteen years of me
turn six months into you?”
Chorus
Nobody wakes up like you.
Nobody carries your weather through.
Different roads,
different scars,
different nervous systems under the stars.
Tell me your story.
I’ll tell you mine.
Just don’t turn either into a finish line.
We can compare what we see—
but comparison’s a bitch
when your life has to look like me.
Verse 2
Ravi read a hundred maps
from people who had crossed.
One said bliss.
One said silence.
One said:
“Everything was lost.”
He marked them in the margins,
trying to find the clue,
until Tess asked:
“If all those maps are different,
which one belongs to you?”
Chorus
Nobody wakes up like you.
Nobody carries your weather through.
Different roads,
different scars,
different nervous systems under the stars.
Tell me your story.
I’ll tell you mine.
Just don’t turn either into a finish line.
We can compare what we see—
but comparison’s a bitch
when your life has to look like me.
Verse 3
Naomi envied Clara
for the words she seemed to find.
Clara envied Naomi
for living from the body, not the mind.
Years went by before they said it,
then laughed until they cried:
each had built the other’s strength
from looking from outside.
Bridge
One gets quiet.
One gets loud.
One loses self-sense in a crowd.
One still feels a centre strong.
One stops seeking.
One seeks on.
One feels love.
One feels fear.
One thinks awakening disappeared.
Who wrote the rule?
Who drew the line?
Who said your weather should look like mine?
Verse 4
Tess drew up a whiteboard:
HOW AWAKENING OUGHT TO BE.
Eight names underneath it.
Eight question marks to see.
Daniel reached for markers.
Maeve laughed out loud.
Tess drew one line through the lot
and looked absurdly proud.
Quiet chorus
Nobody wakes up like you.
Maybe waking isn’t something you do.
Conditions shift.
Old patterns stay.
Some dissolve tomorrow.
Some take years to fade.
Listen to stories.
Let them be clues.
Just don’t make somebody else’s life
the test yours has to prove.
Verse 5
Two groups by the ocean,
each with its peculiar sound.
One had years of shorthand.
One was still bumping around.
Neither was the later version.
Neither was behind.
Two different little ecosystems
meeting for a time.
Final chorus
Nobody wakes up like you.
Nobody carries your exact weather through.
Different bodies.
Different pasts.
Different things unravel first and last.
Tell me your story.
I’ll tell you mine.
We’ll laugh at the urge to turn either into a line.
We can compare.
We can learn.
We can notice where the old assumptions burn.
But comparison’s a bitch
when difference becomes
something wrong with me.
Outro
A gull stole Daniel’s sandwich.
Eight bodies answered back.
One laughed.
One ducked.
One shouted.
One froze along the track.
Same gull.
Same moment.
No standard response came through.
Maybe awakening isn’t making us identical.
Maybe nothing living
ever knew
how to do that
too.
