Copper Wire Kings

[Verse 1]
You probably never saw the glow, just tint on the 40th floor,
The Cam 14 feed, October twenty-first, quarter past four.
The Dorsey-era building cross the way was half a ghost, just steel and dust,
You stood up on the wet-slick ledge and tested all your faith on a rail of rust.
He was talking with his hands, drawing blueprints in the humid air,
You were pulling at a loose thread on your sweater, like the cold got there.
I saw the bad wiring flicker, the last work-light on the rooftop die,
Figured you were saying final words beneath a burned-out copper sky.

[Chorus]
And from my tower I could see it all, the slow collapse, the quiet fall.
You were the copper wire kings of nothing, stripping the ruin for the beautiful.
Yeah, you were kings of nothing, watching the skyline start to pull
Away from everything you thought was solid, everything you thought was full.

[Verse 2]
I got the whole night logged, patrol notes from my midnight round,
The drone of planes from Hartsfield was the only other living sound.
He passed you a silver flask, your breath made ghosts against the security lens,
I watched you trace the MARTA lines and try to make some kind of new-world sense.
He must've said, 'We'll make it work,' 'cause I saw you just shake your head,
The architecture of a promise showing every stress line, everything unsaid.
You looked right at my window once, a flash of static on the screen,
The loneliest two people in Atlanta that this guard had ever seen.

[Bridge]
Saw you last week at the Five Points station, face was the same but the lines were new.
I almost told you that I watched the ending, I was a witness just for you.
Guess every story needs a silent watchman, someone to catalog the cost,
Another empty lot on Peachtree where another little kingdom got lost.

[Outro]
Then you walked off frame, and the screen went empty, just the wind and rain.
And the silence held a note that I can still hear, ringing in my brain.