First Impression

By PRUS

On Youth Memories

Released on March 3, 2026

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[Verse]

I started where sound didn’t really exist yet

Not silence as in peace, but silence as in depth

Like the world hadn’t decided what it wanted to become

And I was just a thought drifting inside what was none

There was no rhythm to follow, no pulse to depend on

Just air that felt heavy like something was said wrong

Like history itself was holding its breath

Waiting for a signal that never quite left

And I remember thinking I was alone in that state

But it felt more like being watched by the weight

Of everything unspoken that people carry too long

The kind of invisible force that builds into song

Not music at first, just pressure in space

Like something was forming but still had no face

Like existence itself was trying to align

But couldn’t decide on a form or design

And then it began, not as a start but a leak

A fracture of sound through the structure of weak

Something like strings but not fully defined

Like memory learning how to reorganize time

It came in layers, not loud but invasive

Like emotion itself becoming persuasive

Violins stretching like they remembered my name

But not the one I use, the one before shame

And I didn’t move, I just let it expand

Like the ground under meaning was shifting its hand

And I felt myself slipping out of explanation

Out of identity, out of expectation

Then came the voices, not words but arrival

A choir of presence without any title

Like human breath turned into architecture

Like emotion becoming its own structure

They didn’t sing at me, they sang through the space

Like the air had decided to show me my place

In something too large to ever be held

Something not spoken, but deeply compelled

And still it grew, not in chaos but order

Like every invisible internal border

Was slowly dissolving without any fight

Just surrender disguised as light

Flutes entered like wind remembering motion

Soft at first like forgotten devotion

Then sharper, then clearer, then almost alive

Like thought itself learning how to survive

The strings became heavier but never aggressive

Just truth becoming increasingly expressive

Like everything buried was finally allowed

To rise without needing to shout it out loud

And I saw in that expansion of sound

That nothing was ever truly lost or unfound

Just waiting in layers too deep to retrieve

Until something inside finally learns to believe

Not believe in meaning, not believe in control

But believe in the shape of a breaking whole

That falling and rising are not opposites

But different expressions of infinite shifts

The choir grew denser, like memory stacked

Like time itself bending and folding it back

Not forward, not backward, but into a form

That existed before the idea of norm

And I stopped trying to interpret the rise

Stopped assigning it purpose, stopped naming its size

Because the more I surrendered the need to define

The more it revealed what was already mine

A vast unfolding without any edge

Like standing on sound at the end of a ledge

Not falling, not flying, just becoming the air

Not asking where, not asking when, or why I was there

And then it all peaked, not violently, but total

Like existence itself becoming vocal

Not as language, not as message or plea

But as pure harmonic infinity

And in that moment I wasn’t myself anymore

Not who I was, not who I was before

Just something included in everything heard

No longer observer, no longer word