Zoning Variance

[Verse 1]
The Rothko room on floor four is a perfect red gate
2:17 on a Tuesday, and I’m functionally late
For a life I was building. Over the climate control's hum
I watch a security guard watch the dust motes become
Something sacred and fleeting, a wabi-sabi kind of grace.

[Chorus]
And the red starts to breathe from the wall
A zoning variance after all
A permit to build where I thought I would fall

[Verse 2]
You said my floor plan was spartan, all right angles and bone
I’m still mapping the grid lines from Kyoto to home
The G train turnstile's an anticlimax every time
And the guard clears his throat, says, "Sir, it's just pigment and lime"
But he doesn't see how the structural load has just grown.

[Chorus]
And the red starts to breathe from the wall
A zoning variance after all
A permit to build where I thought I would fall

[Bridge]
'Cause it's not non-attachment if you never connect
Just a vacant lot where the blueprints got wrecked.

[Outro]
A zoning variance
After all.