Weight I Carry Quiet (Version 2)

Intro

Key machine humming behind the counter glass

Every copy I cut got a story attached

Nobody asks how I'm holding, they just hand me the brass

Verse 1

Tuesday shift at Odom's Hardware, register light

Cut a spare for the barber, one for the widow on the right

She don't trust her nephew, slides it 'cross like it's fine

Says keep the copy too son, case I don't answer in time

Third floor tenant's got a leak he don't want in the file

Landlord skims the deposits, been ghosting him a while

I fix the trap myself, WD-40 and a wrench

Charge him nothing but a coffee and a Sunday on the bench

Everybody's got a version of me in their pocket

Spare key, spare ear, spare hands when they can't lock it

I never learned to lean, learned to be the leaning post

My uncle taught me quiet 'fore the county shipped him coast to coast

Said a man who talks his weight just spreads it thin

Better carry it silent, better keep it hid within

So I smile at the counter, ring the register slow

Pocket full of keys and a back that nobody sees bow

Chorus

Weight I carry quiet

No parade, no title

I just hold the door up

Weight I carry quiet

Verse 2

October night Ms. Odell's stove hissing blue

Called me 'fore she called the gas line, said hurry, please, come through

I climbed the fire escape, third floor, window jammed with rust

Kicked it soft not hard, didn't want her waking up in dust

Shut the valve with a towel wrapped around my wrist

Sat with her till sunrise, held the flashlight, made a list

Landlord never knew, inspector never came

I signed no paper, wasn't looking for the fame

Monday she tried to pay me, folded twenty in my palm

Told her keep it for the pharmacy, keep her hands calm

Word got round the building, they started leaving notes

Under my door like prayers, like I'm the one who floats

But at home my own pipes rattling, my own lights dim

Ain't nobody climbing fire escapes for him

I carry every fix but forget how to be fixed

Learned to love in service, never learned the way it sticks

Chorus

Weight I carry quiet

No parade, no title

I just hold the door up

Weight I carry quiet

Bridge

Told my girl last winter, said I'm tired of the load

She said you never told me, you just disappear down the road

I said quiet was protection, she said quiet build a wall

Now I'm learning how to hand somebody a key at all

First time in eleven years I let a door stay locked

Let another man's leak run till the morning, and it shocked

Something loose in my chest when I finally let it drop

Still don't know if that's healing or if that's just where I stopped

Outro

Key machine still humming, but I cut one for