Overdraft Prayer

[Verse 1]
The girl in the corner booth at Alfred's Coffee
Counts out seventeen dimes for a half-sweet oat milk.
She straightens her spine like her mother taught her to;
Her own eyes in the window look tired and foreign.
The air smells like money and burnt espresso beans,
A language she's learning but hasn't yet spoken.

[Pre-Chorus]
She thinks about rent for the room on Serrano,
A text from her bishop she deleted a week ago.
Little apologies caught in her breathing,
This freedom feels just like a surgical grieving.

[Chorus]
This is the cost of living out loud!
It’s an overdraft prayer in a godless crowd.
This is the cost of living out loud!
An overdraft prayer, she's saying it now.

[Verse 2]
Her phone buzzes, screen cracked like a fault line,
It's a Venmo request, forty bucks, for “last time.”
She mouths the words, “five to seven business days,”
Like setting a bone that just won't stay in place.
Sees a girl with a CTR ring at the counter,
And has to look down so she doesn't confront her.

[Pre-Chorus]
She thinks about Utah, the smell of the sagebrush,
The crippling comfort of knowing too much.
Says a bad word just to feel the vibration,
A private and holy desecration.

[Chorus]
This is the cost of living out loud!
It’s an overdraft prayer in a godless crowd.
This is the cost of living out loud!
An overdraft prayer, she's saying it now.

[Bridge]
And for a second, a phantom ache in her shoulder blade
Where a wing's meant to grow, or a debt has been paid.
She almost believes it, the whole beautiful lie,
Reflected in glass under a chemical sky.

[Outro]
She leaves a one-dime tip on the table.
The door chimes behind her. Unstable.