Leather Ghost

[Verse 1]
Adidas Copas on the milk crate by the door.
You know you shouldn't touch them anymore.
They still smell of winter mud from that pitch out in Keilor,
the night a teenage dream decided to shut its own door.

[Pre-Chorus]
And you trace the faded stripes, feel the cracks in the skin,
let that old hum start to pull you back in.
The way the crowd noise used to rise on the southern-stand wind,
you tell yourself it's just a game you didn't win,
but the laces are still knotted from that final, useless tackle...

[Chorus]
Oh, you and that leather ghost,
still playing the chances you miss the most.
It whispers what you could have been, a quiet boast.

[Verse 2]
Remember Coach Miller, Tuesday arvo, pissing down rain.
He’d yell, "You got the gift, Jed, feel it in your veins."
Now it's just last call for pints and the ache that remains,
while his voice plays on a loop through the bar-speaker chains.

[Pre-Chorus]
And you trace the faded stripes, feel the cracks in the skin,
let that old hum start to pull you back in.
The way the floodlights cut the fog rolling thick and thin,
you tell yourself it's just a game you didn't win,
but the right stud's still caked in the turf that held you down...

[Chorus]
Oh, you and that leather ghost,
still playing the chances you miss the most.
It whispers what you could have been, a quiet boast.

[Bridge]
Just one more time, you think, just to see if they still fit.
A slow dance in the hallway with your own hypocrite.

[Outro]
Nah. You turn the light off. You leave the ghost to it.