Every Plank

[Verse 1]
The thread on your Barbour coat, damp from the Cutty Sark.
The grit from the Thames path still under my nails in the dark.
The Cornish name your mother gave you for when storms begin.
Four seventeen AM, reading the details pressed into my skin.

[Pre-Chorus]
And I'm pulling the splinters from my mind,
trying to build you again, one piece at a time.
But the wood feels all wrong and the colour's too bright,
and the hum of the fridge is a violence in the night.

[Chorus]
Is it a kindness or is it a killing?
To replace every plank of you I'm forgetting.
This new ship in the harbour just isn't you, is it?
Just a shape where you stood, a well-meaning counterfeit.

[Verse 2]
Your accent that thickened whenever you'd call your dad.
You said, "Don't be a stranger," and that was the last...
...clear thing I held. Now it's just echoes and textures,
like the ghost of a dubplate from a Deptford weekender.

[Pre-Chorus]
And I'm pulling the splinters from my mind,
trying to build you again, one piece at a time.
But the wood feels all wrong and the colour's too bright,
and the DLR's whine is a violence in the night.

[Chorus]
Is it a kindness or is it a killing?
To replace every plank of you I'm forgetting.
This new ship in the harbour just isn't you, is it?
Just a shape where you stood, a well-meaning counterfeit.

[Bridge]
If I forget the cold of the gate key you gave me,
does the memory of your hand still have the weight to save me?

[Outro]
Just the cold of the key.
Just the cold.