As-Built Drawings

[Verse 1]
The sump pump quit in your parents' house on Race Street,
That August after freshman year was ninety-eight degrees.
We mapped the stress points out in sidewalk chalk,
A language built from borrowed tools and late-night talks.
The damp-rot smell of the joists in the dark,
We never planned for the water to leave a mark.

[Chorus]
'Cause we're the ghost of a blueprint,
The as-built drawing proof.
Held together by nail rust and absolute truth.

[Verse 2]
There's a hairline crack from the winter of '09,
Your dad got sick, you drew a heavy, thicker line.
And that deflection near the window where I left,
An unaccounted-for torsion, a kind of theft.
But the resonance is different now, it's low and deep,
A secret that the cross-beams learned to keep.

[Chorus]
'Cause we're the ghost of a blueprint,
The as-built drawing proof.
Held together by nail rust and absolute truth.

[Bridge]
Got that picture you sent from the airport Tuesday night,
Your kid asleep beneath the terminal half-light.
You just texted, "Look what we built. It still holds."
It isn't perfect, it's just ours, and it is gold.

[Outro]
Yeah, the ghost of a blueprint.
The as-built drawing proof.