Kinzua Cantilever

[Verse 1]
The Kinzua Cantilever stood through that August heat.
We counted rusted rivets, a hundred feet above the creek.
Cold iron sweat on my palm, your voice a distant hum.
I felt the whole damn valley vibrate when the coal trains would come.

[Chorus]
We were built to stand, on a blueprint made of sand.
A beautiful collapse held in the palm of my hand.
This load-bearing lie, a hairline fracture in the sky.

[Verse 2]
I trace the ghost of it now on a ten-year-faded map,
A scar across the county where the steel spine finally snapped.
You tried to mend the trusses with the courage in your throat,
But I just kept on welding shut the letters that you wrote.

[Spoken-Word Interlude]
(A staticky, distant voice, like an old radio broadcast)
"...officials cite a catastrophic structural failure... a force of nature... there's nothing left to salvage..."

[Bridge]
You grabbed the guardrail, looked down, and said, "I think we're gonna fall."
And I didn't know you meant the bridge, or us, or nothing at all.

[Chorus]
We were built to stand, on a blueprint made of sand.
A beautiful collapse held in the palm of my hand.
This load-bearing lie, a hairline fracture in the sky.

[Outro]
The Kinzua Cantilever stood through that August heat.