[Intro]
[Keyboard taps become the hi-hat pattern while low guitar enters beneath a clipped synthesizer sequence.]

[Verse 1]
The function appeared before thought reached the key,
A clean answer waited, suggested to me.
I read it, corrected one variable name,
Then watched every test turn from failure to tame.
The pull request carried my portrait and sign,
My username printed above every line.
Reviewers wrote, “Elegant. Nicely designed.”
I stared at the code and could not call it mine.

[Pre-Chorus]
It knew the conventions, the patterns, the shape;
It filled every opening before my escape.
I chose what to keep and approved what it wrote,
Yet felt like a witness attaching a note.

[Chorus]
Ghost code running under my name,
Perfect in function, absent of flame.
Ghost code passing every review,
Written by patterns and guided by who?
My hands made the doorway, the system came through;
Ghost code is working—but what did I do?

[Verse 2]
I prompted a service, a mapper, a test;
The answer arrived before I could digest.
A day’s worth of labor collapsed into ten
Bright minutes of choosing, then choosing again.
The board finally moved toward a plausible green;
My manager praised the new speed of the team.
I smiled in the camera and muted the sound,
While lines I had summoned kept spreading around.

[Pre-Chorus]
It knew every library, shortcut and frame,
But none of the nights that had hollowed my name.
I merged the solution and closed the review;
The system grew stronger. I faded from view.

[Chorus]
Ghost code running under my name,
Perfect in function, absent of flame.
Ghost code passing every review,
Written by patterns and guided by who?
My hands made the doorway, the system came through;
Ghost code is working—but what did I do?

[Instrumental Break]
[Processed vocal fragments recite variable names rhythmically while guitar and strings exchange the cyan motif.]

[Bridge]
Authorship used to be hours in a chair,
A problem resisted, then opened somewhere.
Now authorship flickered between yes and no:
I named the destination. It mapped where to go.
Was choosing creation? Was editing craft?
Was I still the builder—or merely the path?

[Breakdown]
Accept. Reject.
Rewrite the call.
Keep the clean method.
Delete all the rest.
Commit. Deploy.
Let monitoring show:
The service is living.
The maker does not know.

[Final Chorus]
Ghost code running under my name,
Bearing my signature, missing my frame.
Ghost code passing every review,
Partly the system and partly my cue.
My hands made the doorway; I chose what came through.
Ghost code is working—
And maybe I do too.
Not whole.
Not certain.
Still present in view.

[Outro]
[The keyboard percussion stops; a human finger plays the cyan motif imperfectly on acoustic piano.]