New Tread

[Verse 1]
The stop sign on Gresham Road still got that bullet-hole crease.
Air smells like hot tar and that Caribbean spot on the corner piece.
Told myself “this ain’t you no more” but the sidewalk remembers the lease
on that first-floor apartment, the busted lock, the shattered peace.
These hundred-dollar work boots feel like a spaceship on the pavement,
a foreign dialect my own two feet are hesitantly sayin’.
It’s the first of the month, got the child support payment saved and sent,
but walking here feels like I’m visiting my own grave placement.

[Chorus]
New tread on the concrete.
Same cracks… still runnin’ under my feet.
New tread on the concrete.
Same cracks, that bittersweet, that incomplete.

[Verse 2]
It’s Tuesday, four-fifteen, that yellow school bus is pulling away slow.
The sun hits the window grime just right, sets the whole street aglow.
See a kid, ‘bout nine, with the scuffed-up Nikes and the same damn vacant look
I had in that faded picture from ‘09, the one your grandmother took.
Used to pick the lock on that back gate with a bent-up paperclip,
a little piece of metal holding the whole damn world at my fingertip.
Now I’m just ringing the bell, my car key cold against my hip,
waiting for the sound of the deadbolt and a practiced, tired lip.

[Chorus]
New tread on the concrete.
Same cracks… still runnin’ under my feet.
New tread on the concrete.
Same cracks, that bittersweet, that incomplete.

[Bridge]
(Beat breaks down to just bass and sparse, percussive elements)
(Lead vocal stops)
(Ad-libs: Yeah… Zone 6… For Maya… uh… different shoes, same street… Same cracks… Can’t pave over everything… Won’t let it… Nah…)

[Chorus]
New tread on the concrete.
Same cracks… still runnin’ under my feet.
New tread on the concrete.
Same cracks, that bittersweet, that incomplete.

[Outro]
That ignition key is a promise I made in the dark.
Just tryna find a clean gear, tryna find a new park.