Header Beam

[Verse 1]
Remember that plywood fort behind the apartments on Candler Road?
We drew the floorplan on a cardboard box, carried the whole damn load.
Summer of '09, the framing went up, our knuckles were raw and red.
Two-by-fours for the load-bearing walls, every single word we said.
The foundation was just Dekalb county clay and a pact we made on a dare.
Built it solid, man, we swore that the roof could hold the evening air.
"'We'll split it two ways,' that was the blueprint," you scrawled it out in blue chalk.
We had the keys cut at the Ace Hardware, a master for every lock.

[Chorus]
But the header beam cracked, a hairline fracture nobody saw.
Just a slow-settling silence, defying architectural law.
The header beam cracked, now the whole damn ceiling sags low.
It was holding it all up, man, how were we supposed to know?

[Verse 2]
Now I drive by and it's just a ghost site, a window with a vacant stare.
I see you sometimes through the double-paned glass of the city air.
We patched the drywall with apologies, but the wiring was already fried.
Every room is an echo chamber of a promise that quietly died.
I tried my key last October, felt the cold brass of the deadbolt bite.
Heard the tumblers refuse to turn, just wasn't sitting right.
It ain't a demolition, nah, it's just a slow and patient decay.
A condemned building still standing that the city just paves around anyway.

[Bridge]
Stress fractures spread like a spiderweb map from a single point of impact.
It's funny how a whole structure can fail and still keep its shape, in fact.

[Outro]
That plywood fort behind the apartments...
Still drawing the floorplan on a cardboard box.