Shear Wall

[Verse 1]
Left your wire-strippers on the basement sill last June,
the sun cooked the rubber grips all afternoon.
I still smell the cutting fluid on the collar of your coat,
still hear the freight train horn, a low and rusty note.
I talk to you in schematics, in tolerances and stress,
plot the hairline fractures that you left inside my chest.
Heard your voice inside the static, clear as feedback from the amp,
'That's a half-inch socket, girl. The wrong tool for the clamp.'

[Chorus]
Built a shear wall for the silence that you left behind,
drew the blueprint in the quiet of my own damn mind.
A load-bearing structure for the weight I couldn't place,
foundation set in concrete, not a single goddamn trace.

[Verse 2]
Now every 808's a girder, every hi-hat set to code,
I build these tracks like bridges on a long-forgotten road.
The MPC grid is humming, a familiar set of rules,
a different kind of steel work, a different set of tools.
The Pilsen window rattles when the Brown Line runs the bend,
a different kind of pressure than the Gary deep-end.
This city's all vertical, a diagram of strain,
I'm tapping out the rhythm of the acid in the rain.

[Instrumental Breakdown - 20 seconds]

[Outro]
The plans are on the table. Guess the power's still on.