ASPHALT HYMN

[Verse 1]
The B46 bus sighs black diesel on Utica, she don't even flinch.
The air's thick as palm oil, July '77, got the whole block in a cinch.
She's tracing a pattern, a loose weave on her dress with a fingernail.
Watching the day get washed out and pale.
Got that mask on, that Brooklyn-made armor, that look that says 'don't even start.'
But the rhythm she tappin' her foot to is tearin' my whole damn composure apart.
She's a whole unwritten ledger, a fable my pops woulda told in Baoulé.
And I'm just another shadow she'll walk through today.

[Chorus]
And the whole city holds its breath for a second.
The streetlights ain't flickered, the future ain't beckoned.
This is the minute before the story gets written.
Just the static and the heat in a moment I'm sittin' in.

[Verse 2]
She pulls out a phone with a cord, but it ain't plugged in, just a prop for the hand.
A nervous new knot in the intricate plan.
'I'm five minutes out,' she lies to the silence, a perfect performance I see.
A whole 'nother life that got nothin' to do with me.
I could map out the future right here on the cracks of this crumbling curb.
Could build up a world with a single damn word.
But the fabric is fragile, my voice is a needle that's sharp to the touch.
And the cost of misreading this moment is too much.

[Chorus]
And the whole city holds its breath for a second.
You check your reflection in the glass, cracked and threatened.
This is the minute before the story gets written.
Just the hum and the heat in a moment I'm sittin' in.

[Bridge]
The bus is pulling up now, the brakes make a sound like a tired old beast.
The moment unravels, the tension's released.
She folds up her mask, puts it back in her pocket, and pays for the fare.
A ghost in the weave of the hot summer air.

[Outro]
The whole city holds its breath for a second.
That thread's about to be cut, that history reckoned.
This was the minute before the story was written.
Gone. Just static and heat from a moment I sat in.