GRADE BEAM

[Verse 1]
Yo, it's Kai. I... look, the I-90 Skyway is humming a C-minor drone,
and your text glows green, it's three-oh-seven on my phone.
First one in three years of static, a digital ghost in the feed,
saw the billboard up on the South Works, where the slag used to bleed.
You remember the smell of the coke ovens on a damp Tuesday night?
Said my face looked unfamiliar under all that halogen light.
Yeah, well, the foundations are different when you pour them yourself in the cold.
I'm a whole different blueprint from the story you sold.

[Chorus]
We were grade beam, held the whole damn thing.
Yeah, the grade beam, felt the seismic swing.
We were grade beam, holding up the frame.
Now you just a hairline fracture calling out my name.

[Verse 2]
You remember that winter we took my dad's truck out to Miller Beach?
The lake frozen solid, the future just out of our reach.
You drew blueprints for mansions on a frost-covered passenger pane,
I was mapping the wiring, tryna engineer away all the pain.
"One day," you swore, hand on the dash where the vinyl was cracked,
"We're off this grid, K, and we ain't never looking back."
But you cut the connection, you tripped the main breaker on me.
Now you want guest-list admission to the life that I built to be free.

[Chorus]
We were grade beam, held the whole damn thing.
Yeah, the grade beam, felt the seismic swing.
We were grade beam, holding up the frame.
Now you just a hairline fracture calling out my name.

[Bridge]
So what do you want? A percentage? A memory? A ride?
'Cause the person you knew, she's buried somewhere deep inside
this high-tensile structure, this city of glass and of wire.
You just fanning an ember from a long-dead industrial fire.

[Outro]
Look, I'm hitting the tunnel. Don't... don't text this number again.
(click)