Frostbitten Throne (version 2)

Verse

Grandfather cut the lake into bricks before the sun could rise

Ten-foot saw, steam off his breath, frost sealed both his eyes

Floated the blocks on ropes, hauled them up the icehouse stair

Packed in sawdust, sold to houses that never knew he was there

Fingers split like kindling, blood black against the white

Wore three pair of gloves and still lost feeling every night

Said the lake don't forgive you, it just lets you borrow ground

Stack forty blocks by morning or the foreman sends you down

Pre-Chorus

Now I ask what kept him steady, forty seasons on that freeze

He said the cold's a tax you pay if you want to keep the peace

Told me kings don't always sit on velvet, some sit on the ice

Question ain't the weather, it's who's standing at what price

Chorus

I built my seat from frozen water, called it home

Numb hands holding steady what the warm world can't hold

Gray sky above me, ash and ice below the bone

Cold never crowned me king, I earned the frostbitten throne

Verse

Now I'm stacking pallets, freezer aisle, thirty below with the fans

Breath comes out in ghosts, frost collecting on my hands

Same blood, different lake, same hour before the light

Forklift beeping backward through the fog just like a knife

Boss don't know my father's name, don't know the saw he swung

Just knows the boxes move on time before the morning's done

Keep his photo taped inside my locker, cracked and thin

Him standing on the ice like it's a throne he chose to begin

Pre-Chorus

Now I ask myself what's steady, forty seasons feel the same

Different kind of frozen ground but we still keep the name

Question ain't the weather, it's who's standing at what price

Chorus

I built my seat from frozen water, called it home

Numb hands holding steady what the warm world can't hold

Gray sky above me, ash and ice below the bone

Cold never crowned me king, I earned the frostbitten throne

Bridge

Told my son the lake's still out there, frozen different ways

Concrete now instead of water, same debt, same delay

He asked me why we do it, why we choose the cold at all

I said some men melt in comfort, some men learn to stall

The throne was never soft, that was never the design

You don't inherit comfort, only how you hold the line

Chorus

I built my seat from frozen water, called it home

Numb hands holding steady what the warm world can't hold

Gray sky above me, ash and ice below the bone

Cold never crowned me king, I earned the frostbitten throne