the butterfly people

By twinningl00m on January 31, 2026 5:38 pm

this song takes reference from an incident in 2011 in joplin, missouri, when the city was hit by a tornado . many people reported seeing people with butterfly wings abducting people in the cyclone. the song itself is continuing on some of the heavily stylized, glitchy postal service-esque pop we've been on a wave of recently . this was a good opportunity for me to train my midvoice a bit more, and for us to get more used to acid arps and marching drum layering .

thought i saw your shadow on the bus
the blood ran cold beneath my gloves
a pit collapsed in my lungs,
and i was sent back to the place where you messed up
what's that we saw in the rain ?
when the tornado came, did something carry you away ?
is it true they don't feel pain ?
strike a match and douse their wings in gasoline
and let them come down in flames

we both loved always pretending
but yours felt more like fencing
or a chess match setting, infantry never relenting
forced down into the trenches
no sense to come to with the shells exploding
ears ringing through the screaming matches, it's corrosive

dig out my own grave and bury you instead
at the end of your service i still missed your breath
the end of something awful leaves you better off dead
it's the end of something awful, leaves you better off dead

when the tornado came, did something carry you away ?
when the tornado came, did something carry you away ?

i filled out all this paperwork
a missing persons report
distorted your voice on the recording
your corporeal form fading
and your artificial heart, it stops and starts
it stops and starts, it stops and starts

Audio works licensed by author under:
CC Attribution Noncommercial No Derivative Works (BY-NC-ND)