96 Flavors of Rust

[Intro]
*[(tuned down to drop C, sluggish tempo ~78 BPM, heavy palm-muted chugs dissolving into feedback-drenched open chords)]*

[Verse 1]  
my knees sound like gravel under wet boots  
every time i stand up from your thrift-store couch  
phone’s glowing like a rectal exam light  
scrolling faces that were born after i already lost my first real fight  

the mirror’s got this new third shift cruelty  
shows me the dad i swore i’d never turn into  
but the crow’s feet keep cashing their checks  
and the laugh lines are just surrender marks now  

[Pre-chorus]  
and the kids keep saying “vibe check”  
like it’s a sentence  
i don’t even know what i’m supposed to defend  

[Chorus]  
i’m fossilizing in real time  
in a world that swipes left on anyone over twenty-nine  
my blood’s still red but it moves like motor oil in February  
getting old in this young world  
feels like bleeding out in a TikTok livestream  
nobody’s watching long enough to call the ambulance  

[Verse 2]  
they sell “vintage” versions of my childhood trauma  
on Depop for eighty-seven dollars plus shipping  
my first broken heart’s aesthetic now  
black and white filter, Times New Roman caption:  
“if you remember this you’re old af”  

i still check the back of shampoo bottles  
for the burn test like it’s 1997  
they’ve got AI writing break-up letters now  
cleaner than anything i ever screamed at 3 a.m.  

[Pre-chorus 2]  
they call it “healing” when you stop feeling  
i call it scar tissue taking over the rent  

[Chorus]  
i’m fossilizing in real time  
in a world that swipes left on anyone over twenty-nine  
my blood’s still red but it moves like motor oil in February  
getting old in this young world  
feels like showing up to a knife fight  
with a bouquet of wilted participation trophies  

[Bridge – half-time, let the distortion howl]  
every song i loved is a meme template now  
every scar i earned is “cringe”  
they’re filming their funerals for content  
and i’m just trying to remember  
what it felt like when missing someone  
didn’t have its own sound effect  

i miss when “going viral” meant you had herpes  
not a personality  
i miss when being twenty-seven  
didn’t feel like the halfway mark of a mercy rule  

[Final chorus – louder, more broken]  
so let me rot in analog  
let the gray spread like rust on a fender  
i’ll keep my bad tattoos and my worse decisions  
and this body that still remembers how to bleed  

getting old in this young world  
ain’t dying slow  
it’s being archived alive  
while the algorithm decides  
your ghost isn’t trending anymore  

[Outro – feedback, distant snare hits like a failing heartbeat]  
turn the lights off when you leave  
i’m already developing in the dark  

(let ring)

grunge, alternative rock, post-punk, sludge metal, lo-fi, shoegaze, slowcore, noise rock, Pacific Northwest indie, Rock!