The Dowel-Pin Vow

[Verse 1]
The Smithfield Street Bridge at five-oh-eight in the morning.
You hated this crossing, the groaning steel grate's warning.
The Port Authority bus breathes a diesel-fume sigh.
I walk with your shoulders, I don't even try to ask why.

[Chorus]
It was just a dowel-pin vow that you made.
A piece of the blueprint, a terrible trade.
A load-bearing silence you passed down the line.
It fits in my throat and I’m proud that it's mine.

[Verse 2]
Your knuckles were river-stone, scarred by the lathe.
I found your old level, a tool for the brave.
“Don't trust any structure that can't take the frost,” you said once.
Then you turned back to the Pirates game, done with it for months.

[Chorus]
It was just a dowel-pin vow that you made.
A piece of the blueprint, a terrible trade.
A load-bearing silence you passed down the line.
It fits in my throat and I’m proud that it's mine.

[Bridge]
And I build my own walls from cinder and shame.
And I feel the tremor when they speak your name.

[Outro]
There's a hairline fracture in every good thing I say.
...thought you should know that, anyway.