(Lyrics)

(Verse 1)

The Golden Hive was empty now, the throne room gathering dust

She’d seen the passing of the line, a victim to their lust

For power, wars, and sudden drops, she was the last to stand

But kept her crown beneath a pile, the safest in the land

For fifty years she’d tucked away, from dust mites and from thieves

Old velvet scraps and porcelain shards and bright, forgotten leaves

Her ballroom was a mountain range, of jewels and broken clocks

The final resting place for all her fifty thousand socks

(Chorus)

She’s buried in her treasure, a sovereign in the sprawl

Past every single paper clip and every rubber ball

She reaches for the light switch, her hand begins to cramp

Lost somewhere ‘twixt a royal wig and a colonial lamp

She checks her wrist for daylight, a glimpse of air to breathe

But all she finds are ribbons that her childhood hands did wreathe

No subject left to call upon, no footman she can hail

Just mountains of the trinkets that have finally made her fail.

(Verse 2)

She thinks about the coronation gown, beneath the tax receipts

The ancient scrolls, the broken dolls, the faded candy sweets

She saved the note that warned her family of their planned demise

It’s right beneath the pile of hats that covered up her eyes

She scratches at the fabric of a hundred-year-old flag

And wonders if her tax laws ever made the people lag

“It’s all in here, my legacy,” she mutters in the gloom

“Every single, dusty thing I rescued from the room!”

(Bridge)

Still searching for the slip of paper, the one she needs to see

The one that says where she should look to find the emergency key

A child’s discarded button, a lover's empty glass

The treasures she collected so the past would never pass

Now all the past she hoarded starts to fall, it starts to shift

No room to breathe, no place to duck, no time to get a gift.

(Outro)

She sees her life in fragments, a slideshow of her things

The rusted rings, the broken springs, the feathers and the strings

“I should have thrown out one thing!” she whispers to the crush

“Not kept the wrapping paper, not saved the final brush!”

“I should have left the sunlight, not filled each room with dread!”

But the ballroom pile keeps falling, she’s smothered by the dead... things.