Soft Hands

[Verse 1]
You take the RTA out to Shaker Heights,
the name of the agency stitched on your whites.
The houses get bigger, the lawns get mean,
you press a greasy thumbprint on the window screen.

[Chorus]
These are the soft hands, the hands that just hold,
the kind that don't fix what they haven't broke.
You keep your knuckles down, you swallow the sound.

[Verse 2]
It's the Thursday shift, the AC hums a comfortable cold,
smells like lemon polish and money that's old.
"Just put it over there," she says, not looking up,
from a phone that costs more than your beat-up truck.

[Chorus]
These are the soft hands, the hands that just hold,
the kind that don't fix what they haven't broke.
You keep your knuckles down, you swallow the sound.

[Bridge]
And you think of Maja's hands, all caked in gray clay,
the calloused-up shape of a real goddamn day.
This isn't just anger, this is a live-wire voltage
trying to find a ground in this upholstered postage!

[Chorus]
(Vocals strained, depleted; band pulls back slightly)
These are the soft hands... the hands that just hold...
And they'll never fix what they haven't broke.

[Outro]
(Single clean guitar plays a reharmonized, melancholic version of the chorus melody)
...your calloused-up hands...