Scaffold Marks

[Verse 1]
You left the horsehair bow on the rosin block in August,
a foundation crackin' slow under all of the wrong artists.
You thought the metronome was your own heart beatin' honest,
an ossuary built for a promise you couldn't polish.
Remember sweat that smelled like varnish on the fingerboard?
That cheap apartment floorboard creakin' out a different chord?
You tried to build a chapel out of every single score,
but the blueprints were a language you couldn't afford.

[Chorus]
And these are just the scaffold marks, you know.
The lines they leave behind before they go.
A gilded rust on everything you own.
Just a shadow on the stone.

[Verse 2]
Now you park the Phantom where the symphony used to play,
that same Savannah rain fallin', washin' all the names away.
The cobblestones remember you, they ask you why you strayed,
you tell 'em "I just trade one empty stage for another stage."
They taught you composition but you only learned decay,
that humid Gullah air is thick with things you'll never say.
She texted you at 2 AM, "I miss the way you'd play."
You just gilded the silence, hit delete and walked away.

[Chorus]
And these are just the scaffold marks, you know.
The lines they leave behind before they go.
A gilded rust on everything you own.
Just a shadow on the stone.

[Bridge]
You wanted architecture, perfect angles, clean design.
But all your load-bearing walls were just a crooked spine.

[Outro]
Yeah... just the scaffold marks.
The grain is showin' through.