Stress Diagram

[Verse 1]
The zoning map for the Girard Point docks is blue-lined on my floor.
I'm tracing the hairline fractures in the concrete you paid to ignore.
The paper feels brittle from the old cast-iron radiator's heat.
A quiet little study in structural fatigue, oh it’s bittersweet.
This isn't revenge, honey, it's just getting my elevation back.

[Verse 2]
I remember you at the groundbreaking, slick in your thousand-dollar suit.
You said, "It's a load-bearing friendship," and I tasted ash and soot.
Now I’m drafting this rebuttal on a napkin from a South Street bar.
A minor adjustment to the blueprint, a memo on who you are.
A whisper to the right inspector, a perfectly timed attack.

[Bridge]
It's the 4:00 p.m. winter dark, that flat grey Lake Erie sky.
The sound of the ore boats groaning is the only lullaby
I ever really trusted. A beautiful machine built to come apart.
You put a rivet through my sternum and called it a work of art.

(Music cuts out entirely for 3-5 seconds of silence)

[Outro]
A train horn on the Schuylkill Viaduct.
They never see the stress diagram 'til the whole damn thing is fucked.