Low hum on the wire wire (Version 2)

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)