The Weight We Share
Underground root network — the invisible systems of mutual support we can't see until they're severed. What looks like individual trees standing alone is actually a web running beneath everything.
Inspiration
From "The Privatization of Recovery" (rest-rhythm river):
Emotional arc: Weight of realization (the infrastructure that holds us is withdrawing) → grief for what's severed → radical honesty about interdependence → grounding in what remains. Not despair—clarity.
Key imagery: - Root networks severed, surrounding roots reaching toward the gap - Person at the edge of what they can carry, already depleted - "Recovery was never supposed to be a solo project" - The cascade when support withdraws - Load-bearing structures vs. assumed self-sufficiency
What this should feel like: The moment you realize you've been held by more than you knew. Heavy but honest. Grounded in interdependence as strength, not weakness.
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Style Prompt
prog-grunge, alternative rock, warm Rhodes piano, fingerpicked acoustic guitar in open D minor, drop D bass, brushed drums, introspective, spacious dynamics, groove pocket, 88 BPM, melancholic hope, breathing room, stripped-back intensity
Lyrics
Someone was barely managing
Now barely's out of reach
The numbers in the headlines
Don't land in policy—they land in skin and speech
We built a story that healing
Lives somewhere inside your head
Willpower and morning routines
But the clinic stayed open late instead
The counselor took sliding scale
The basement group was free
Load-bearing beams we never named
Until we heard them leave
When infrastructure withdraws
It doesn't leave a neutral space
It leaves a person already depleted
Looking for a door that moved someplace
What holds, what holds
The roots beneath the ground
What breaks when no one's watching
What strains to pass the weight around
Recovery was never solo
We just couldn't see the web
Now I'm reaching for connections
That were severed while I slept
The friend who checks without being asked
The co-pay that stayed low
The routine that kept you moving
Some of these are fragile—do you know?
The story says you should carry this alone
Says needing less means strength
But humans never healed in isolation
That's revisionist—we've known the truth at length
So what's load-bearing in your web of care?
What have you been leaning on
Without acknowledging it's there?
Not to fear the loss—
But to tend what still remains
The systems shifted while we watched
Your response to that is today's terrain
What holds, what holds
The roots beneath the ground
What breaks when no one's watching
What strains to pass the weight around
Recovery was never solo
We just couldn't see the web
Now I'm reaching for connections
Strengthening what's left
