What Muninn Counts
A man alone in his warehouse at night, counting boxes, counting what is left of him and what the empire still holds. The forklift sleeps. The raven keeps watch, and counts with him, notch after notch.
Lyrics
Sixty totes in a row, all black, all clean
Counted twice by a man that nobody's seen
Two dollies by the door, standing ready to roll
Everything accounted for, except the soul
The lights hum low, the concrete's cold
I'm rich in boxes and poor in gold
But empires have risen from less than this
I take inventory of what's left of me
Count it by hand so the numbers agree
Half of a marriage, all of a name
Two daughters' worth of silence and a warehouse of shame
I take inventory, and the count comes out wrong
Everything's here, and everything's gone
A ring in a drawer that I don't open much
A phone that lights up with nobody's touch
Applications sent to a world that moved on
I built their empire, and the builders are gone
The forklift sleeps, the raven keeps watch
He counts with me, notch after notch
He never left his post, and neither have I
I take inventory of what's left of me
Count it by hand so the numbers agree
Half of a marriage, all of a name
Two daughters' worth of silence and a warehouse of shame
I take inventory, and the count comes out wrong
Everything's here, and everything's gone
They say a man is what he keeps.
Then I am plastic, stacked to the ceiling, labeled in marker.
But an empire is not what it stores. It is what refuses to fall.
The things I threw away had names.
And the things that threw me away did too.
The raven remembers every one of them. The raven knows.
I take inventory of what's left of me
Count it by hand so the numbers agree
Half of a marriage, all of a name
Two daughters' worth of silence and a warehouse of shame
I take inventory at the end of the day
The shelves are full
And the empire stays
Lock the door, kill the light
One raven stays on the standard tonight
The count will keep till tomorrow night