Load Bearing

[Verse 1]
The Allegheny County voter list is still on my kitchen table
Next to the cold pierogi you left from your mom's, still in the foil.
It's 4:17 in the morning, I know I shouldn't call,
But the hum from the streetlights is drilling through the wall.
My hands still feel the grit of a thousand folded papers.

[Pre-Chorus]
And the whole damn day was just a line of damp wool coats
And the squeak of worn-out sneakers on the VFW floor,
The smell of burned coffee, the tremor in their throats
As they took the pen from me. I was fine before...
I was fine before he walked through that door...

[Chorus]
Some walls are load bearing.
Some people just aren't.
And you can't tell by looking which one will fall apart.

[Verse 2]
He had the same blue blazer from the six o'clock news
And a voice like gravel smoothed over with balm.
He said, "It's good to see young people paying their dues."
His hand was clean. The ink was bleeding into my palm.

[Pre-Chorus]
And I saw the stress fracture running behind his eyes
A hairline crack right through the patriotic sheen
Heard the echo of a gavel, the rustle of his lies
In the quiet of the curtain on the voting machine...
That polite and hollow sound of the whole damn scene...

[Chorus]
Some walls are load bearing.
Some people just aren't.
And you can't tell by looking which one will fall apart.

[Bridge]
My father said this whole town was built on a bad foundation.
But he still clocked in, believed the girders would hold.
He said you gotta fight the rust, not the whole damn nation.

[Outro]
Anyway. I'm tired. Talk to you tomorrow.
...Hey, is this thing on? Beep.