GUM WRAPPER GHOST

[Verse 1]
The Concourse traffic's bleeding through the pane, a Tuesday kind of rain.
I hear the Mr. Softee jingle fighting with a siren's strain.
Then the sound gets small, just the hum inside the wall, the click of my own jaw.
Got the MPC pad glowing, dust motes in a slow-drawl
and a photo of your smile from the summer of '19.
You're half a person now, just a faded color scheme.
If I swap the frame, clean the glass, change the place it's always at—
Is that still you I'm looking at? Just a thought I'm wrestling with.

[Chorus]
Piece by piece, replace the taste.
Sweet relief, then bitter waste.
I build a new you, you build a new you.
Is that a ghost or just an empty room?

[Verse 2]
Remember cherry Bubblicious, corner of the playground bench?
The snap was so specific, couldn't mask the bubblegum stench.
Now you talk so proper, got your coffee black and bitter.
My dad looked at your picture, said, "I barely recognize her."
I keep a silver wrapper that you folded to a swan,
Stashed it in a shoebox, swore I'd keep it from the dawn.
But the foil's getting soft, and the sugar scent is gone.
If a memory dissolves, was it ever really drawn?

[Chorus]
Piece by piece, replace the taste.
Sweet relief, then bitter waste.
I build a new you, you build a new you.
Is that a ghost or just an empty room?

(The track cuts to complete silence for 4-5 seconds)

[Outro]
Smooth it out flat on the wood grain...
a silver square of nothing.