Nine Worlds, One Trap House (version 2)

Intro

Nine coats of paint on one crooked door

Every color underneath a different war

Grandmother's chalk mark still under the floor

Say this house been fed before

Verse

First world was a chapel, pews stripped down for wood

Preacher sold the copper pipe, said the Lord understood

Second world a barbershop, clippers hummed all day

Old man swept the hair for tips, called every curl a wage

Third world was a corner store, milk crate for a shelf

Fourth world brought the iron bars, man armed himself

Fifth world caught the fire, the check came in late

Sixth world built it back up on the money and the wait

Seventh world a boarding house, eight men to a room

Eighth world sat there silent, windows sealed like a tomb

Now it's mine, the ninth world, stove replaced the pew

Same nail holes in the ceiling holding up the residue

Found the preacher's Bible wedged under the stair

Set it on the mantle next the scale and the prayer

Ash on the windowsill from every fire that came through

This house don't forget nothing, it just adds a residue

Chorus

Nine worlds, one trap house, same door that won't lock

Every hand that built it left a print on the block

Paint over paint over paint but the scars still talk

Nine worlds, one trap house, still standing, still hot

Verse

My mother scrubbed the floors of the seventh world for rent

Told me the house remembers everything you spent

Raised in borrowed rooms on somebody's old regret

Sleeping where the boarding men coughed up their debt

Learned to cook where the barber used to trim the fade

Same mirror on the wall, cracked but never replaced

Count plates instead of prayers, keep the scale nearby

Keep the preacher's Bible close in case I need to fly

Fire scar on the beam still shaped just like a hand

Say it's the sixth world reaching down to help me stand

I don't talk about the corners, I just know the math

Nine lives lived in one structure, mine's the aftermath

Gate outside been rusted shut since the fourth world's war

Welded it back open, said we ain't hiding no more

Ash still in the mortar from a flame I never lit

Guess survival's just inheritance you learn to split

Chorus

Nine worlds, one trap house, same door that won't lock

Every hand that built it left a print on the block

Paint over paint over paint but the scars still talk

Nine worlds, one trap house, still standing, still hot

Bridge

Sometimes I sit the stair where the pews used to be

Wonder if the tenth world gon remember me

Maybe he'll find my scale wedged under the floor

Add his coat of paint, walk through the same door

I ain't the first to bleed here and I won't be the last

This house don't hold funerals, it just holds the past

I write my name in chalk where the grandmother wrote hers

Say the trap's just a chapel for whoever it was

Outro

Nine worlds, one trap house, one door that won't lock

I'm just the paint drying before the