Length: 5:40

Instrumentation: high voice, piano

Year: 2024

• versions for medium and low voice available

Awarded First Place Prize in Sparks and Wiry Cries’ 2024 Chicago SongSlam, hosted by Fourth Coast Ensemble

Premiere performance given by Amanda Kohl and Florence Mak in May 2024.

Text:

What was I built for?
What am I made of?

I don’t feel like the mountain
as much as I do the air around it,
the sky pouring in the space between.

I see myself in everything,
the snowflakes on my coat,
the ebb and flow of the season,

I am the sickness
that rises up like the tide,

I am the sun
setting on the snowy peaks,
I am the sun—

All the beautiful and terrible selves
I hold in my hands,
I carry in my lungs.

Leela Srinivasan