Drywall Seams

[Verse 1]
Four AM, the grounds in the bottom of the dzezva
Are a map of a country I will never know.
You're on the porch again in the August humidity,
Replacing a screen door panel, moving slow.
The hammer taps are gentle, like you're trying not to wake me,
Or the ghosts you carried over in your coat.

[Chorus]
You build the walls to keep the weather out,
You patch the cracks along the drywall seams.
But this whole house is built on a foundation
Made of silence and your untranslated dreams.

[Verse 2]
Mom's out back, her hands are in the Gravois Avenue dirt,
Staking up the tomatoes, tying knots.
She looks at the splintered fence between the bungalows and says,
"A good house always guards the things it's got."
I just nod and watch the steam from my coffee on the glass,
Tracing patterns of a language I forgot.

[Chorus]
You build the walls to keep the weather out,
You patch the cracks along the drywall seams.
But this whole house is built on a foundation
Made of silence and your untranslated dreams.

[Bridge]
You painted my whole room a quiet blue
To cover up the water-damage stain.
Did you think that I would never feel the dampness?
Never learn to recognize the shape of rain?

[Outro]
The floorboards give a sigh under my weight.
The whole house settles in for the night.