[Intro: Mechanical kick, muted guitar, tightening low strings]

[Verse 1]
The surgeon cut the armor from my wrist
And asked me which two fingers I had missed.
Cold lamps lay doubled in a metal tray.
I watched the damaged nerves refuse obey.
They wrapped the hand in layers, dark and tight,
A strip of midnight swallowing the white.
The glove concealed the tremor and the seam;
It changed the shape my fingers held in dreams.

[Pre-Chorus]
Bare skin remembers pressure, heat and grain.
Covered skin remembers only pain.
I closed my fist and felt the leather prove
That what no longer feels can still be moved.

[Chorus]
Black gloves, close around the hand I knew.
Hide what was broken; tell me what to do.
Black gloves, make uncertain feeling cease.
If touch creates the wound, then strength is peace.
I cannot hold the world with fingers numb,
So I will make the frightened future come.

[Verse 2]
A village burned behind our guarded line.
The order waited for a safer sign.
A father called beyond the sealed estate
While measured voices argued over fate.
I broke command and crossed the burning square,
Then dragged three children through the heated air.
They named me reckless after lives were saved;
Contempt lived underneath each caution phrased.

[Pre-Chorus]
Their open hands had written rules too slow.
My covered hand had acted through the glow.
The glove became the answer I could trust:
Decide before the living turn to dust.

[Drum Break: Toms against mechanical pulse]

[Verse 3]
My mentor reached to touch me after dark.
I moved before his palm could find its mark.
He asked me when I learned to fear a hand.
I said, "When waiting turned into command."
He studied black cloth fitted to my skin
As though he saw the closing shape within.

[Breakdown]
Grip the blade.
Seal the seam.
Close the fist.
Control the dream.

[Bridge]
What cannot touch cannot be made to grieve.
What does not open cannot watch them leave.
I mistook numbness for a kind of peace
And made control the cure for all I could not keep.

[Final Chorus]
Black gloves, close around the hand I knew.
The leather fits more faithfully than you.
Black gloves, make the human tremor cease.
I will enforce the shape they call their peace.
If open hands must watch the helpless fall,
Then mine will close and take command of all.

[Outro: Blue blade, black cloth, three descending horns]