Redline Hours

[Verse 1]
The breaker box in the hall is humming a low C-sharp.
It’s 3:17 AM, linoleum’s biting my feet, leaving a mark.
This whole house is holding its breath, a vacuum-sealed machine.
Waiting on a piston to fire, waiting for the screen to turn green.
I mapped the cracks in the ceiling, they look like the roads out of Zone 6.
Every path I promised you we’d take, just another dead-end fix.
This quiet is louder than any engine I ever had to strip and rebuild.
It’s the sound of a promise I made that’s about to get itself killed.

[Chorus]
This engine in my chest won't cool down.
Just burning through the fuel now.
Still turning.
This engine in my chest won't cool down.

[Verse 2]
My father was a ghost in a different transmission, left the gears to rust.
Turned absence into an heirloom, a legacy of dust.
My grandma said, "Just pray on it, son, give the Lord the keys."
But I've been picking this lock so long I can't feel my own knees.
Remembered you asking me last October why my hands shake.
I told you it was from the tow winch, for goodness sake.
It’s a half-truth, the body keeps a torque spec that the mind forgets.
The cold metal memory of all my outstanding debts.

[Chorus]
This engine in my chest won't cool down.
Just burning through the fuel now.
Still turning.
This engine in my chest won't cool down.

[Bridge]
Maya turned over in her sleep, a rustle of the sheets.
The only clean timing, the only rhythm that completes.
This whole world is balanced right there on her steady breathing.
That's the only damn reason I'm still believing.

[Outro]
The phone screen is black glass.
Nothing's changed, nothing can pass.