DATUM POINT

[Verse 1]
The MPC light is a dull red eye, it's a Tuesday, three-oh-nine.
Got the Pilsen grid on the window pane, a schematic in my mind.
Every beam I place, every track I lace, is measured from a chalk line
Back on the block by the Calumet yard, where the rebar bleeds through the sign.
I trace the plan for the tower crane, the cantilevered trust,
While the ghost of Gary whispers low through the freight train’s iron rust.
They gave me the keys, a different view, a skyline I could claim,
But I keep one bag packed by the door, just waiting for my name.

[Chorus]
They tap your shoulder in the glass lobby, a polite and quiet sound.
Say the load calculation’s off, kid, gotta tear the whole thing down.
It's a datum point, a concrete fact you can’t engineer around.
Yeah, the datum point, the zero-mark dug deep in hometown ground.

[Verse 2]
I see my father at the kitchen table, the severance papers spread.
He traced the logo of the mill, 'Steel don't bend,' is all he said.
Heard that silence in the Local 67, the week the furnace cooled,
Felt the cold floor through my Nikes then, a different kind of school.
So I build it tight, I build it clean, I check the torque on every bolt,
'Cause I know the fault line's humming with a half-a-million volts.
I'm on the hundredth floor, I'm checking code, the city's at my feet,
But I still taste slag and sulfur on the high-rise August heat.

[Spoken Word Interlude]
(A cold, automated female voice, slightly distorted)
"Your access has been re-evaluated. The key-card for this level is no longer valid. Please return to the designated muster station for debriefing."

[Bridge]
(Tempo slows, beat strips back to just a distorted 808 hum)
The skyline glass goes liquid slow, a beautiful collapse.
The girders sigh and start to bow, erasing all the maps.
No sirens, just a quiet fall, a blueprint folding in.

[Outro]
Yeah, the datum point… the zero-mark.
Back to the beginning again.