CANTILEVER

[Verse 1]
August, '08, the Kenmore hummin' low in Ogden Dunes,
the dashboard cracked from sun, we scrubbin' silver spoons.
My mother's Civic coughed up smoke outside the three-car bay,
the driveway heat rose up in waves and bent the shape of day.
Inside smelled like lemon pledge and money sleepin' sound,
no hint of coke-grate furnace burn for miles and miles around.
The chill of central air felt like a threat against my skin,
a blueprint for a life I wasn't born to be let in.

[Chorus]
If you pour the concrete foundation four feet deep on fault-line ground,
do you pretend you cannot feel the shaking when it comes around?
When the cantilever balcony hangs out above the fall,
does the rebar in the floor slab even hear you at all?

[Verse 2]
White carpet thick enough to lose a quarter in the pile,
I saw their family portrait, practiced holding up a smile.
Their son had model rockets he had never even built,
just trophies on a shelf collecting architectural silt.
'Don't look at their mail,' my mother said, 'just dust the damn frame.'
I saw the pastel pink eviction notice with their name.
A hairline fracture spidered out across the kitchen tile,
she saw it too, we didn't speak, just worked a little while.

[Chorus]
If you pour the concrete foundation four feet deep on fault-line ground,
do you pretend you cannot feel the shaking when it comes around?
When the cantilever balcony hangs out above the fall,
does the rebar in the floor slab even hear you at all?

[Bridge]
That whole grid was built on paper, hollow studs and pretty wire,
the quiet hum of foreclosure burning like a low-grade fire.
Same rust, different zip code.
Same dust, different load.

[Outro]
Drove home past the steel mill glowing like a dying lung.
Does the rebar even hear you?