**[Verse 1 – restrained, rhythm-heavy, internal rhyme]**

Bills on the table, a tableau of tension,

Final demands in fluorescent ascension,

Stamped with a scarlet-inked sense of intention,

I stage them in stacks like it softens the mention

Envelopes edged with impending eviction,

Folded like secrets I dodge with conviction,

Practicing passive, avoidant restriction,

As if unread warnings revoke their affliction

Kettle still hums—small domestic defiance,

Steam like a ghost of financial compliance,

Sip on denial, dilute the reliance,

On hope that’s been stretched into fragile appliance

Kids in the next room are laughing in loops,

Cartoons buffering bliss as I’m counting out coppers and cutting the truth into manageable groups

---

**[Pre-Chorus – tighter phrasing, tension climb]**

Don’t—

Make a movement, mute every floorboard,

Breath in the back of your throat, keep it stored,

We’ve rehearsed this before without words—

If we’re silent, we might be ignored

---

**[Chorus – clean but still lyrical]**

Turn the TV down—don’t shift, don’t speak,

Let the stillness stretch for a stolen week,

If we vanish inside of the soundless ground,

Maybe no one will know we’re around

Turn the TV down—stay small, stay slight,

Keep your shadow stitched into the light,

If they hear us, it all unwinds…

So we quiet the world and hide

---

**[Verse 2 – more emotional, elevated diction]**

Portions partitioned with practiced precision,

“I’m not that hungry”—repeated revision,

Masking the maths of a meager provision,

Where love does the work of a lost acquisition

Plate pushed away with performative ease,

Jokes as a shield for the shortage they’d see,

They’re none the wiser—still wild, still free,

While I ration the truth like it’s currency

Footsteps fossilized, fixed in the flat,

Curtains half-drawn in a defensive format,

Living suspended in “this” and in “that,”

Where survival’s a skill and collapse is a fact

---

**[Rap Section – dense, multisyllabic, articulate]**

Yeah, I’m quantifying quiet in a quasi-compliance,

Where the cost of existence is constant defiance,

Got a deficit drifting in digits and dockets,

While I pocket the panic and posture reliance

See the letters are leverage with legal inflection,

Every sentence a subtle, systemic correction,

Of a life out of line with the fiscal projection,

Where the poor pay in stress as a form of collection

I’m a tenant of tension, a ventriloquist voice,

Throwing tone to the void like I’ve got any choice,

Every knock is a metronome measuring noise,

And the silence is something I weaponize, poised

For the moment they mention repossession intentions,

I’m inventing extensions, dependent on tension,

Comprehending the weight of a rent that’s relentless,

While pretending the pressure’s not present or endless

It’s arithmetic anguish—an actionable ailment,

Where the balance is bent by a bureaucratic bailiff,

And I’m bailing on balance to balance the failure,

Of a wage that’s a cage in a capitalist structure

Kids see a king in a crumbling estate,

Where the crown’s just composure I counterfeit, straight,

I’m curating courage while carrying weight,

Of a world where your worth’s what you’re earning per day

Grinding hours to powder for fractional gain,

Trading time like a line in a ledger of pain,

It’s a cycle of siphoning soul into strain—

Where you give everything and get debt in exchange

---

**[Break – minimal, intimate]**

Stay still…

Stay small…

Not a sound…

Not at all…

---

**[Final Chorus – fuller, emotionally heightened]**

Turn the TV down—don’t shift, don’t speak,

Let the silence settle in slow and deep,

We don’t breathe, we don’t make a sound,

We just hope we’re not found

Turn the TV down—stay small, stay slight,

Hold the dark like it’s something to hide inside,

So they leave and we carry on…

Like there’s nothing wrong

---

**[Outro – reflective, poetic]**

Ink on paper, pressure in prose…

Every unopened letter still knows…

But not tonight…

Not tonight…