(mmm... hmm... mmm...)

[Verse 1]
[whispered vocal, intimate and neutral]
The hot side presses in against me,
The bond I hold begins to thin,
I do not choose to leave the wick —
The gradient pulls me in.

I carry heat that has no temperature,
A hidden load, a latent store,
I rise because the pressure asks —
I do not know what for.

[Refrain]
[slightly fuller, still hushed]
Hot to cold,
Cold to hot,
I carry what I cannot keep,
And give, and start again.

[Verse 2]
[voice neutral, sine tone beneath]
The middle of the pipe is dark and even,
No exchange, no loss, no gain,
I move because the pressure leads me —
The gradient is my name.

Whatever warms the evaporator
Is not my knowledge, not my care,
I have no memory of the source —
I only know it's there.

[Refrain]
Hot to cold,
Cold to hot,
I carry what I cannot keep,
And give, and start again.

[Bridge]
[Spoken Word — different voice, quiet, omniscient]
In nineteen forty-four, a man in Michigan
drew a loop on paper, sealed a fluid in —
and shelved it.
Twenty years before a physicist at Los Alamos
named it, published it, and sent it toward the sky.
The molecules he chose were not consulted.
They were distilled, and placed, and sealed —
and have not touched the outside since.
[whispered vocal returns]

[Verse 3]
[settling quality, slightly warmer]
The cold side opens to receive me,
The flight becomes a gentle fall,
The bonds reform, the body gathers —
The lattice makes its call.

The heat I carried is surrendered,
Released into the cold, and free —
A long-wave photon lifts and leaves now,
It does not look back at me.

[Refrain]
Hot to cold,
Cold to hot,
I carry what I cannot keep,
And give, and start again.

[Instrumental Break]
[slow sine pulse, drawn peristaltic texture, capillary wicking]
(mmm... hmm... hmm...)

[Verse 4]
[whispered, identical tone to Verse 1]
The hot side presses in against me,
The bond I hold begins to thin,
I do not choose to leave the wick —
The gradient pulls me in.

I carry heat that has no temperature,
A hidden load, a latent store,
I rise because the pressure asks —
I do not know what for.

[Coda]
[sine drone returns, bowed glass, voice dissolves to wordless]
(mmm... hmm... mmm...)
[Fade Out]