Runes in the Rust

Intro

Chisel in the drawer since the mill went cold

Grandfather's initials scratched where the gears used to hold

Rust don't lie, it just remembers slow

Every mark he left me still got somewhere to go

Verse

Foundry closed in eighty-one, furnace breathed its last

Men walked out with nothing but the soot stuck to they past

He stayed behind and carved into the frame of a car

Said the metal keeps a record when the paper goes too far

Three lines for the ones who lost a hand to the press

One circle for the widow who still wore her Sunday dress

He taught me how to read it 'fore he taught me how to write

Said ink fades in the rain, boy, but rust holds through the night

Fire took the roof off in the winter of the strike

He climbed back in the wreckage just to save the good vice

Scarred his palm on a beam that was glowing like a coal

Said pain's just a chisel when it's carving out your soul

By the time I was ten I could name every dent

Knew which rusted gate meant a debt that never bent

He died with his hands black, steel dust in his lungs

Left me a code that ain't spoke in nobody's tongue

Chorus

Runes in the rust, carved deep where the steel forgot

Every scar's a language, every wound's a plot

We don't write in ink, we etch what won't wash off

Runes in the rust, the proof that we still got

Verse

Block took the mill's place, same rust, different game

Chain-link instead of furnace, same soot, same shame

I carve my own marks now on the hood of a Regal

Line for the fallen, cross for the ones still lethal

Cousin caught a body count that the courts don't show

I scratched it in the fender so the block would know

Ain't about the flexing, it's about the keeping score

Every symbol on that metal is a closing door

Taught my little brother how to hold the blade steady

Said don't rush the carving, boy, the truth ain't ready

He asked me why we don't just post it, make it known

I said some things gotta live longer than a phone

Screen goes dark in a second, rust takes a hundred years

That's why the old man's chisel outlived all our tears

I keep it sharp, I keep it close, I keep it true

Every rune's a name for somebody who made it through

Chorus

Runes in the rust, carved deep where the steel forgot

Every scar's a language, every wound's a plot

We don't write in ink, we etch what won't wash off

Runes in the rust, the proof that we still got

Bridge

They tore the foundry down last spring, sold it for the land

Bulldozer couldn't touch what's carved by a steady hand

Took one gate before they hauled the rest away

Set it in my hallway so the marks could stay

Ain't a museum piece, it's a debt I still owe

Every scratch a name of somebody I still know

Outro

Rust don't rot away the truth, it just wears it in

Chisel's getting passed again, let the carving begin

Runes in the rust, the proof that we still got