[Philopera] here Desire Becomes the Sky

This opera translates Nietzsche’s understanding of desire into sound and image. For him, desire is not a mere lack, but an expression of the will to power: the inner drive to grow, reshape, and overcome. The lyrics follow a single voice that moves from shame and self-suppression toward an open affirmation of longing. Social norms first appear as cages, polite masks, and ceilings drawn on the sky, teaching the protagonist to distrust their own hunger. Yet the more desire is repressed, the more it twists into roots that choke the soul. When the tenor finally listens to the “quake in his chest,” desire changes from something to hide into a creative force that builds a new self “out of shards and flame.” The climactic choruses proclaim that real strength is not found in shrinking to fit expectations, but in daring to let one’s inner fire reshape the world. Suppressing desire weakens life; transforming it into action, risk, and creation is what allows us to become more than we were.

[Lyrics]
I woke with a fire, burning under my ribs,
a nameless thunder, pushing at my skin.

The world said, “Be smaller, hide that rising flame,”
but the silence inside me whispered, “Begin.”

I walked through their shadows, through rooms of quiet doubt,
each careful whisper weighing on my tongue.

Yet under the armor of all the borrowed fears,
a wild, bright river in my chest stayed young.

Oh, I am more than the wounds I obey,
more than the cages they call “the right way.”

Let this desire lift me high, high, high,
breaking the ceilings they drew on my sky.
If I am burning, then let me ignite,
turning my hunger to radiant light.

I will not shrink just to keep them at ease,
I am the storm that was born from their “please.”
Let every tremor, each tear in my eyes,
rise like a ladder where my spirit climbs.

They taught me to cover the colors of my heart,
to smile like a painting nailed onto a wall.

But the pulse in my fingers kept reaching for the edge,
for cliffs where I’m dizzy and yet I stand tall.

I’ve buried my longings in gardens made of shame,
afraid of the thunder my truth might release.

Yet every suppression grew roots around my soul,
choking the breath that once tasted of peace.

No more disguises of “virtue” and “calm,”
when all that they soothe is the fear in their palms.

Let this desire lift me high, high, high,
breaking the ceilings they drew on my sky.
If I am burning, then let me ignite,
turning my hunger to radiant light.

I will not bow to the comfort of chains,
I am the lion that rose from their plains.
Let every fracture, each crack in my voice,
open a doorway to my deeper choice.

Once I believed that my wanting was wrong,
a stain on my spirit, a flaw in my song.

Now I can hear in the quake of my chest
the call of a summit that will not rest.

If I must shatter the person they see,
to find the one burning and trying to be,
then let the pieces fall where they may,
I’ll build a new self out of shards and of flame.

Let this desire lift me high, high, high,
breaking the ceilings they drew on my sky.
If I am burning, then let me ignite,
turning my hunger to radiant light.

No more erasing the surge in my veins,
I’ll turn my longing to rivers and rain.
Out of the pressure that pushed me to kneel,
I rise as the mountain that dares to feel.

Let all my hunger, my trembling, my cries,
shape me to something that finally flies.
And if I’m falling, I’ll still reach above—
for in this wanting, I learn how to love.

In every rising, in every sigh,
my living desire becomes the sky.

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