Copper Scars, Warm Light (version 2)

Verse

Basement panel humming, breaker box from '81

Wire strands nick my knuckle every job half done

Mrs. Odom, third floor, radiator's cold as stone

Called the super twice this week, left it on her own

Duffel bag of copper pipe worth more than my rent

Ruben's scrapyard pays by pound, no questions where it went

Landlord's letter taped my door, three months in arrears

Still I run the line to her unit, swallow what it costs me here

Pre-Chorus

What's a room worth when the fever climbs

What's a bill worth against an old woman's spine

I keep choosing warm over what's mine

Every winter since '09

Chorus

Copper scars, warm light

That's the trade I make tonight

Copper scars, warm light

Keep the block breathing, keep it tight

Verse

My brother calls it soft, says a hustle's still a hustle

Strip the whole fourth floor, split it, no more muscle

Told him Pop wired half this building back when I was ten

Taught me current follows patience, not the way you spend

Found his old tool belt buried underneath the sink

Leather cracked like riverbed, still smells like solder and zinc

I could cash it out tomorrow, live a little wide

Instead I tape the exposed wire, walk the dark hallway outside

Pre-Chorus

What's a room worth when the fever climbs

What's a bill worth against an old woman's spine

I keep choosing warm over what's mine

Every winter since '09

Chorus

Copper scars, warm light

That's the trade I make tonight

Copper scars, warm light

Keep the block breathing, keep it tight

Bridge

Ruben asked me why I don't sell the whole coil

Told him some things ain't for scrapyard soil

Every scar on my palm's got a window it saved

A porch light on at midnight, a name I ain't erased

This ain't about the money I could've had instead

It's about the hallway humming when everybody's fed

Chorus

Copper scars, warm light

That's the trade I make tonight

Copper scars, warm light

Keep the block breathing, keep it tight