Keloid Hymn

[Verse 1]
(A cappella)
I'm the silver line just south of your knuckle,
born under the hum of the I-90 overpass that angry July.
I pull tight when the wind cuts off the Lake,
a little pressure, a ghost of the break.
You flex your fingers, testing my anchor,
and I remember the taste of shattered glass and anger.

[Chorus]
Don't you call me a memory,
I'm the interest on the pain.
I'm the proof you're still breathing
in this bitter-skin rain.

[Verse 2]
She traces my edge, the light from the clinic waiting room is low.
"It's an old story," you tell her, but I know what you know.
I watch you count the units, the needle's little prayer,
I feel the tremor through the tissue we share.
You think I'm silent history, a map somebody drew,
but I'm the part of that boy that is still inside of you.

[Chorus]
Don't you call me a memory,
I'm the interest on the pain.
I'm the proof you're still breathing
in this bitter-skin rain.

[Bridge]
You want me to be a lesson, a line of grace,
(Harmony stacks enter: swelling, defiant, gospel-inflected)
I'm just the deed to a terrible place.
A hard-tissue prophet you refuse to hear,
a low-grade fever year after year.

[Outro]
The sun goes down, I hold the line.
Yeah. Your line is mine.