[Intro]

I have stripped away the easy language.
I have measured every cost.
I know exactly what I'm saying.
I know exactly what is lost.

[Verse]

The executives sit opposite me,
Forecast numbers on the wall.
Every face expects a pathway
Where no honest pathway falls.
The customer will not accept a ceiling—
Every failure could be written in our name.

[Chorus]

No deal is better than this deal.
No signature is safer than the seal
On a promise we cannot price,
On a risk no firm should feel.
Let the revenue disappear—
No deal is better than this deal.

[Verse]

Sales will call me obstruction.
The board may call me wrong.
But I did not study consequence
To fold the moment it came along.
There are choices that look costly
Only measured by today.

[Chorus]

No deal is better than this deal.
No applause can make the danger less real.
When the contract has no boundary,
When the harm can never heal,
Let the customer find another
Company willing not to feel.

[Guitar Interlude]

[Bridge]

I cannot promise there will be no damage.
I cannot promise jobs are safe.
I can only promise this agreement
Will not carry my consent.

[Final Chorus]

No deal is better than this deal.
Let the unsigned line remain the final seal.
We may grieve the vanished revenue,
We may hate the way it feels—
But a company can rebuild a quarter,
Not the life a ruin steals.

[Outro]

The black fountain pen stays closed.
The signature line stays clean.
For the first time in three hundred pages,
Silence means exactly what it means.
