Intro
Low hum on the wire (wire)
Window down three inches, breath like smoke (smoke)
Watch the dial glow amber on the dash
Still awake
Verse
Two-fifteen, the exhaust pipe clicks beneath the floor
Sodium vapor casting orange on the passenger door
Felt like stone for seven months, just moving through the shifts
Counting out the register, ignoring what it lifts (lifts)
Now the fog rolls thick along the riverbank wall
Rubber soles dragging cold water through the hall
Every streetlight hums at sixty cycles in the wire
Skin finally registering frost against the fire
Kept my chest locked down like a quiet machine
Punch the clock, take the train, wipe the counter clean (clean)
Tonight my collarbone catches the mist
Feel the syncopated murmur ticking in my left wrist
Static on the shortwave, needle between bands
Steering wheel ribbed like a spine under my hands
Not running from the trouble, not looking for a fight
Just letting cold oxygen sharpen up my sight
Chorus
Invisible threads connect me to the night (the night)
Tied to the iron, tethered to the white line (line)
Numb on the surface but burning on the inside
Invisible threads connect me to the night (night)
Verse
Overpass shadow cuts a stencil on the hood
Learned to tell the difference between living and just good
For a long stretch breathing was a reflex, not a choice
Chewing through the silence with a hollowed-out voice (voice)
Now the diesel fumes mix with wet pine and rust
Gravel in the wheel-well spitting out dust
Third gear, twenty-five, crawling past the railyard
Learning how to soften what I used to keep hard
Heavy coat, wool soaked, collar tucked high
Power lines hanging down a dark grid sky (sky)
Every joint in my knuckle feels the drop in the degrees
Hearing how the midnight bends the cedar trees
Survival was a cage with an open silver latch
Took twenty miles of quiet just to strike another match
Sensation coming back like needles in the bone
Pulled in by the current, never quite alone
Chorus
Invisible threads connect me to the night (the night)
Tied to the iron, tethered to the white line (line)
Numb on the surface but burning on the inside
Invisible threads connect me to the night (night)
Bridge
No sudden morning, no curtain pulled wide
Just the slow drip of thaw through the ice in my side (side)
I spent years playing dead so the blows wouldn't land
Now I feel every grain of the grit in my hand (hand)
Tension releases, the brake pedal yields
Mist rising up from the winterized fields
Outro
Wires humming low
Engine cooling slow
Silver on the pavement where the shadows divide
Invisible threads connect me to the night (night)
