Page 88 of Discordant Cultivation

Vale noticed a tremor in his own fingers, still stuck on the heat of Kieran’s body, the way he clenched around Vale while trying desperately to hold onto his guitar, to keep playing as his pleas turned to sobs and then whimpers. The memory made Vale’s pulse spike even as his hands found the opening chord.

You’re going to take all that fury I carved into you and make something the world will never forget.

“Ready when you are,” Eliza announced, camera raised.

Kieran positioned himself with his back to the camera, his heavy breathing audible even from a distance—controlled but rapid, like someone preparing for battle. He rolled his shoulders, cleared his throat, and began with a humming vocalization that transformed into the song’s opening rhythm. Kieran turned to face the camera so suddenly it looked like an invisible force had spun him around.

“I cracked open my ribcage like the spine of a book,

Take a look, take a look at the pages inside…”

There it is. The fire I knew was hiding beneath all your careful protections. The rage you were too scared to touch until I made you feel it while taking everything else from you.

The soft vocalization—”Mm-mm”—escaped his throat like someone trying to hold back screams, then launched into the next verse with building intensity:

“Every chapter written in the language of ache,

Every verse a mistake I was trying to hide…”

Eliza backed up as Kieran advanced, almost spitting his lyrics at her, each word delivered like a condemnation and a curse. The pre-chorus built like gathering storm clouds—Kieran’s voice continuing to climb:

“Reading between the lines I’d drawn in blood,

Thumbing through the flood of everything I was...”

The chorus was a gunshot through the room:

“But you didn’t like what you saw in the margins,

So you banned the book, banned the book—”

His feet found the first stack of books with perfect timing, the thud punctuating “banned the book“ with percussion that felt like heartbeats, like doors slamming, like the sound of dreams being discarded.

“Took a match to my confessions,

Burned the lessons, burned the look...”

he continued, kicking another stack as he moved through the space, almost weightlessly.

Vale’s fingers found their entrance, his beloved piano joining the devastation as Kieran moved into the second verse. The way he delivered “I shelved myself in sections, sorted pain by publication date“ made Vale’s chest tighten—this wasn’t just about internet comments anymore, it was an autobiography set to music.

“Catalogued my fractures in the Tragedy aisle,

Filed my smile under Fiction—’cause it hadn’t been seen in a while…”

Kieran was magnetic, pulling focus even as he moved backward through the room toward Vale. His gaze never left the camera, accusatory and unwavering, until he snapped down to snarl directly into Vale’s ear with the intimate fury of lovers fighting:

“I was Dewey Decimal, organized by damage,

Every bandage catalogued and cross-referenced pathetic page...”

You hate me right now. You’re performing that hatred, channeling it, making it beautiful. And later tonight whenyou’ve burned through this rage, I’ll make you feel better with gentle hands.

Kieran swept sheet music from the piano and moved to demolish another book arrangement, the sound of papers rustling adding a randomized texture that a studio production could never achieve.

He sang toward the ceiling first, his arms spread wide like someone addressing the divine, then turned that devastating gaze directly into the camera lens:

“Every book I ever was; Is just a ghost of what you thought you wanted;