Runes in the Rearview (version 2)

Intro

Chalk dust on the mirror, ghost mark on the glass

Every road I'm leaving teaches me the past

Grandad drew the first one, I just read it right

Runes in the rearview, guiding me through the night

Verse

Grandpa rode the boxcars out of Wilmington in thirty-four

Chalked a cross on the gatepost, said this house got more

Cat meant kind woman, wheel meant keep on walking

Snake meant dog with teeth, a language built from talking

He read the fence line like a preacher read the psalm

One wrong symbol had you sleeping through the storm

Kept a nub of chalk sewn inside his coat

Marked every kindness like a debt he had to note

Told my daddy the code before they tore the tracks

Said a man who can't read signs gon' break his own back

Daddy passed it down in scars instead of chalk

Every burn on his knuckle was a story he could walk

I grew up tracing symbols on the tailgate rust

Learned survival ain't a legend, it's arithmetic and trust

Now I drive the same roads with the same old ghost

Every mark still guiding like a lighthouse on the coast

Chorus

Runes in the rearview, chalk turned to ash

Every mark that raised me still cutting through the glass

Read the world in symbols before I learned the words

Runes in the rearview, that's how the outlaw survives

Verse

Now the marks are different, chalk turned to spray

Tow yard scratched a code in my tire the night they towed it away

X on the curb where the dice game bled

Circle on the door meant the count was fed

Learned to read a block like my grandad read a field

Every symbol on the wall was a verdict, was a seal

Three dots by the mailbox meant the law rode through at four

A slash across the mattress meant don't sleep here no more

I left my own mark once, a star above the drain

Showed the young ones running product where the current don't reach rain

Every scar on my forearm is a rune I understand

Read myself like scripture when I'm holding my own hand

Mama kept the chalk nub grandad carried in his coat

I carry something sharper but it's the same old vote

Vote for living, vote for reading what the city wrote

Runes don't ever lie to you, only men do, only hope

Chorus

Runes in the rearview, chalk turned to ash

Every mark that raised me still cutting through the glass

Read the world in symbols before I learned the words

Runes in the rearview, that's how the outlaw survives

Bridge

I chalk a line now on the gate where I first learned to run

Teach the little cousins the meaning before the marks are gone

Not a warning this time, it's a compass drawn in white

Shows them where the kindness is, shows them where's the fight

Grandad's cross, my scar