Neutral Ground

[Verse 1]
A silver F-150 with a sticker-peeled tailgate
Parked behind the Blue Pine Inn last Tuesday, kinda late.
I saw her through the passenger glass, her head thrown back to laugh.
Felt the hum from the transformer on the power pole I passed.

[Pre-Chorus]
Just one detail in a catalog of static on the line,
One more survey marker on a shifting property line.
A receipt for two dinners from a town you've never been,
The way she turns her phone down now, when you come walking in.

[Chorus]
And I'm standing on the neutral ground, the wire between the poles,
Carrying a current that's corroding both our souls.
It's a low-grade constant hum,
Between what's right and what's become.

[Verse 2]
We were cinching down a guy-wire just south of Condon grade,
And the cold torque of the wrench was the only sound we made.
You wiped the sweat out of your eyes, looked up at the alkali sky.
Said, "She's the only honest thing I got. The rest is all a lie."

[Pre-Chorus]
The faded smell of motel soap that clings to her old coat,
A half-told story of a meeting that gets caught up in her throat.
A map of tiny falsehoods you just haven't learned to read,
A different kind of hunger and a different kind of need.

[Chorus]
And I'm standing on the neutral ground, the wire between the poles,
Carrying a current that's corroding both our souls.
It's a low-grade constant hum,
Between what's right and what's become.

[Bridge]
Some promises are braided steel, some are just a single thread.
Some things are better buried, some things are better said.

[Outro]
The high desert goes quiet when the sun bleeds out and sinks.
And the hum is all that's left of what a good man thinks.