+5. Composed dismissal, sardonic.

A partner caught being unfaithful shows up at the door apologizing, and the narrator refuses the apology on the grounds that it is regret at exposure, then ends the relationship on the page using an extended theatre conceit (a performance concluded, a curtain, an ovation, an award for lying).

internal_work. The case for height rests on the narrator's own discernment and release. REQUIRED CHECK, TRANSFORMATION: opening posture is a partner dismissed at the doorstep and an apology already judged false; closing posture is the same judgment restated with the departure enacted. The narrator is decided from the first line, so no material change in posture occurs across the song. Aesthetic-markers sub-test also fails: the argument for elevation rests on the theatre conceit and its crafted extension, which is a stylistic register, not a cited change in the narrator. Two sub-tests fail, so the transcendence read is capped at the Decent band. What IS on the page is real and not hypothetical: the dismissal is executed, not wished (his clothes are to be collected, the ending is stated as fact), so this is not an R7 subjunctive failure, it is a fixed posture.

Degraded 9 fires on two discrete jabs, one at the target's intelligence and one at his appearance while weeping. Neither is hook-carried and both are removable: delete them and a coherent exit song remains intact, with the sardonic ovation and the refusal of the apology untouched. This is not the R13 shape (no profanity aimed as a put-down) and not the -78 contempt archetype (no dominance claim, no violence imagery, no rival). Pervasiveness: DISCRETE. Harm: -14. Pervasiveness: discrete.

Blue 3 fires partially (a hard truth about the apology's motive accepted and stated plainly) and blue 10 fires in weak form (the attachment is released on the page, with no bargaining and no request for him to change). No revenge is fantasized and no property is claimed as spoils, which keeps the release clean. Under the route cap these do not reach Elevated strength. Transcendence: 16.

Placed against +12 and +25-contaminated. Stronger than +12, whose Decent placement rests on diffuse mood, because the discernment here is articulated precisely and the exit is completed. Weaker than +25-contaminated, which earns a genuine Elevated arc through named avoidance and self-caught flaws, none of which appears here. Sits between them and nearer the middle of the upper Decent band. Precedents: +12, +25-contaminated. Center: +14.

(relative to the placement) - Saturation: 0. Up-signals steady, never saturating. - Resolution: +1. Closing is decisive, departure completed. - Register: +1. Sustained theatre conceit, coherent figure. - Reach: -1. Strictly one to one.

The harm axis does not govern (discrete, not pervasive) and the read lands in green territory, so contamination is live. The two put-downs aimed at the target by the narrator are deployed contempt, not witness-voiced (R5(d) does not apply). Contamination: discrete personal jabs at the target's intelligence and at how he looks while crying.

Decent territory, between +12 and +25-contaminated, because the dominant arc is a clear-eyed refusal of a self-serving apology and a completed exit, held below Elevated by a posture that is fixed from the opening line.

aligned.

Decent territory, between +12 and +25-contaminated, because the dominant arc is a clear-eyed refusal of a self-serving apology and a completed exit, held below Elevated by a posture that is fixed from the opening line.