EXOSKELETONS

[Verse 1]
The one-dollar bill stuck to the well-wood is soaking through Tuesday.
We see the motorcade brake lights bleed on the rain-slicked U street.
We feel the city's whole damn spine contracting for a motorcade Tuesday.
They crawl in here, shed their skin, talkin' 'bout a new day.
Termites in the ties, chewing on the foundations we laid down with our *bones*.
We pour the top-shelf poison, watch 'em sip it from their thrones.
Our aprons smell like bleach and lemon, tonic water and cheap cologne.
We move like a colony, a low and steady drone.

[Verse 2]
We see the deals get made over melted ice and bitten lime.
We hear the whispers of a budget cut, some federal pantomime.
He said, "'Smile a little, honey,' ain't that worth another dime?"
His breath was sour whiskey, we been swallowing that crime for a long, long time.
We nod across the pass-through, a language with no sound.
The dishwasher's got a new burn, the prep cook's losing ground.
This whole damn marble city was built on what we found
In the bottom of the till, the mud, the godforsaken ground.

[Hook]
This ain't a body, it's a shell we carry through the heat.
This ain't a city, it's a nest we patch up underneath their feet.
We are the hard backs, the *jointed* legs, the bitter and the sweet.
We are the exoskeletons that ghost along the street.

[Outro]
The rag goes 'cross the bar-top, erasing every name.
Then we clock out in the morning, and we do it all again.