Temporary Works

[Verse 1]
The fluorescent hum at Lunar House, a Tuesday in the rain.
She smooths a crease out of the form, then smooths it out again.
Her posture is a perfect plumb line, engineered with care,
a load-bearing blueprint for a life that isn't there.

[Pre-Chorus]
And the ticket in her hand is getting damp around the edge,
as she mouths the practiced answers standing on the ledge.

[Chorus]
That polite reply's a retaining wall,
holding back the slide.
And for a second you could swear you saw
the tension cracks inside.

[Verse 2]
He calls her number through the static, doesn't meet her gaze,
just stamps the page with bored disdain, a phase inside a phase.
Her file is just aggregate, another tonne to shift.
She says "Thank you for your time, sir," a calculated gift.

[Pre-Chorus]
And her voice is just a fine-drawn line on someone else's plan,
a detail he will disregard as quickly as he can.

[Chorus]
That polite reply's a retaining wall,
holding back the slide.
And for a second you could swear you saw
the tension cracks inside.

[Bridge]
And I will miss this version of her, braced against the fall,
before the slow corrosion takes the foundations and the wall.
This fragile, hopeful structure in the cold bureaucratic light,
the last defiant drawing of a battle she can't fight.

[Chorus]
That polite reply's a retaining wall,
holding back the slide…
(Just a quiet beat and banjo)
…and for a second, I think I saw the tension cracks inside.

[Outro]
She walks out onto Wellesley Road.
The scaffolding is gone.