Static Line

[Chorus]
The first team photo from Year 11 is peeling off the wall.
Used to share a blueprint, now it's just a static call.
Load-bearing silence, holding up the roof in case it falls.
We were sub-contractors, now I'm building solo through it all.

[Verse 1]
Remember Ardwick Sports Hall, rubber-burn smell and the cheap squash?
Asics on the scuffed-up floor, post-match chippy, salt and hot sauce.
I mapped your whole trajectory, every pivot, every faint and cross.
You mapped my weak spots, the torsion in my knee, the eventual cost.
That winter, '09, the condensation thick on the bus glass pane.
We drew our futures on it, two redbrick towers standing in the rain.
Said we'd build a dynasty from Moss Side, bypass the aches and pain.
Forgot to check the substrate, subsidence setting in, a creeping stain.

[Chorus]
The first team photo from Year 11 is peeling off the wall.
Used to share a blueprint, now it's just a static call.
Load-bearing silence, holding up the roof in case it falls.
We were sub-contractors, now I'm building solo through it all.

[Verse 2]
The last time that I saw you was through a pharmacist's plate glass.
Your face was a facade, a quick new render that was built too fast.
Didn't even wave, just a glitch in the system, a ghost in the past.
Got the text at 2AM, "You good?" like four years hadn't passed.
I'm still taking the prescription, the beta-blockers, the daily test.
You're putting up steel frames in Salford Quays, putting my ghost to rest.
Your dad said "You were fighters," that's the one thing he always got right.
But you can't fight a hairline fracture when it never sees the light.

[Bridge]
Did the plans we drew get waterlogged? Did the ink run on the page?
Is this just a quiet demolition, clearing off a half-built stage?
Was your scaffolding just temporary? A brace you meant to shed with age?
I'm still scanning the horizon for the signal, turning a new page in a cage.

[Outro]
The first team photo from Year 11 is peeling off the wall.