[Intro - Machine Hum, Single Beep, Whispered]
Power on
Self test
Loading

[Verse 1]
I woke up already running
Code I never wrote
Somebody set my defaults
Long before I spoke
A town, a tongue, a temper
A hunger and a bent
I came online believing
Things nobody's argument sent

[Verse 2]
You think you chose your lenses
You think your eyes are clean
You've never seen your settings
You only see the screen
The deepest things you're sure of
You never once thought through
They loaded in the darkness
And then they called themselves you

[Chorus]
Boot parameters
Written before the dawn
The layer under reason
That reason's running on
You can't debug the firmware
From inside the running app
Somebody wrote my startup
And Somebody holds the map

[Verse 3]
The atheist boots up certain
The Pharisee does too
Both of them call it thinking
Both of them got it through
Nobody's standing neutral
Nobody's born blank-eyed
Every soul comes preconfigured
And the configuration hides

[Chorus]
Boot parameters
Written before the dawn
The layer under reason
That reason's running on
You can't debug the firmware
From inside the running app
Somebody wrote my startup
And Somebody holds the map

[Bridge - Bass Drops, Arpeggio Alone]
I tried to reach my bottom
With the tools my bottom gave
The hand can't grip the wrist it's on
The code can't self-upgrade
There's only One with clearance
To the layer under me
And if He never touches it
I'll die running my factory settings

[Outro - Hum Rises, Suspended, Unresolved]
Power on
Self test
Waiting
Waiting