Text:
Intro (spoken, low synth bed)
You told me death is natural — a closing of the book.
But when the pages are ripped, not turned, what story's left to look?

Verse 1 (rap, measured)
They marched them out in winter coats, promises in pocket seams,
asked for sons and answered with the hollow echo of machine.
Natural end — a tide that turns, a river that renewes,
but bullets make a different math, they steal the next of you.

We count in faces missing from the factory line,
an empty chair at tables where a child's name should shine.
Not just a body gone — it's futures never tried,
ideas never hatched, a thousand lullabies denied.

Pre-Chorus (spoken)
You call it duty, call it fate — I call it subtracting time.
When men are lost in trenches, the silence is the crime.

Chorus (melodic, mourning)
When the numbers leave, what rises after grief?
Who will plant the seeds, who holds the reef?
If death is the broom that clears the old to make room,
what of the hands that never learned to bloom?

(solo)

Verse 2 (rap, more intimate)
One million ghosts on payroll lists, or maybe half that count,
each a future engineer, a father, a mount.
Economies get colder when the young are burned away,
science slows, the factories dim, a country ages gray.

Ask me if it matters which flag they marched beneath,
I answer in the absent shoes, the empty maternity wreath.
Not seeking blame for borders — only asking this:
if youth is the seed of progress, who will tend the abyss?

Bridge (spoken, KI-like, slight reverb)
Loss is arithmetic that governments refuse to solve.
A missing cohort multiplies in ways that policy must resolve.
If killing is a policy, then watch the future shrink;
numbers are not statistics — numbers are the brink.

(solo)

Chorus (repeat, fuller)
When the numbers leave, what rises after grief?
Who will plant the seeds, who holds the reef?
If death is the broom that clears the old to make room,
what of the hands that never learned to bloom?

Outro (soft, resigned whisper)
We are neither pro nor anti — we are pro the living still,
pro the chance a newborn gets to drink from tomorrow's will.
So stop the hands that push the young into the grave,
let life be life; let death, when comes, be brave.

When the Numbers Leave

Thank you all for your overwhelming support and for always stopping by to enjoy my music. Your loyalty truly inspires me to keep creating and sharing more with you. Let's continue having fun together and celebrate the joy of music!

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When the Numbers Leave

Thomas Brutscher