No Witness

Nobody was there for all of it that’s honest They just dropped in on the parts that looked polished You saw scenes you were never in the process I was in the furnace, you were in the office Nobody was there for all of it No Witness No full run-through no name on a wish list Still in the flesh No Applause Built This Only I know what it cost just to exist Whole life read like a test I ain’t opt in Black bag packed by the door keep it boxed in Three shirts, one pair, that was the options Rooms change names I adjust stay cautious Rules on the wall with the tape barely holding Thumbprint smear where the ink kept folding Boards in the floor with a note in my head Step wrong once and the house knows you’re there Closet rod lean from the Weight Shift heavy Name on the door swapped out like settings Mirror with a chip at the bottom of the frame Same face everything around it erased Foster-file life just line after line Years cut up like they’re splicing my time You got one page, maybe two, that’s it I got every little edit they don’t submit Same life different lens no alignment You don’t see the gaps in the assignment No synced view no combined print No one in the room for the fine print Nobody was there for all of it that’s honest They just dropped in on the parts that looked polished You saw scenes you were never in the process I was in the furnace, you were in the office Nobody was there for all of it No Witness No full run-through no name on a wish list Still in the flesh No Applause Built This Only I know what it cost just to exist Car seat leaned back further than it should go Foam split open where my spine made a trench cold January air draw lines on the windshield Frost from the Edge like the glass trying to heal Key in my palm with the teeth marks carving Same lot lines every night where I’m parked in Wouldn’t call it sleep, just eyes on mute Heartbeat loud every little sound on loop Streetlight crawl from the dash to my chest Then slide off slow leave nothing but stress You ain’t ever counted out hours like that Thin as a thread but it still won’t snap Hip got metal when the bone couldn’t hold weight White room wristband code on the whole case Clock on the wall hit ticks like a drill bit Cold in the joint outlasted the visit Curtain half-open second chair never touched Ceiling tile grid is the cage when you look up None of that made it in the story they print That’s Deferred Output I’m the storage for the script Same name they say when they speak on the surface Not the same tape that was running under service You ain’t in frame when it cuts this close You ain’t in range when the system goes ghost Nobody was there for all of it that’s honest They just dropped in on the parts that looked polished You saw scenes you were never in the process I was in the furnace, you were in the office Nobody was there for all of it No Witness No full run-through no name on a wish list Still in the flesh No Applause Built This Only I know what it cost just to exist Press line hit that’s a whole different mindset Stamp release same sound same dialect Oil in the cuticles stain on the hi-vis Factory floor hum sitting under my eyelids Green light blink with a preset cadence Two-count pause then the cycle stay dangerous Steel stack flush to the rail in the Still Zone Edge so tight any slip feel full-blown Clock out drop to the basement Cold Storage Phone light glow the only real voltage Charger held in by a bend in the cable Compile Under Load on a cracked-up table Call come through with a flat tone no tremor Name in the speaker like a glitch in the header Segfault Home when the line goes dead Just an Omission Bank entry in my head No Cache Retrieval when the past gets buried Only thing left is the weight I carried No Applause Built This no stream no playlist I’m the only archive with the uncut data Still Here Still Zone still shift Still press still bone still limp Still move like I’m coded to persist Still nobody got the full plot twist Nobody was there for all of it that’s honest They just dropped in on the parts that looked polished You saw scenes you were never in the process I was in the furnace, you were in the office Nobody was there for all of it No Witness No full run-through no name on a wish list Still in the flesh No Applause Built This Only I know what it cost just to exist Nobody was there for all of it Not now Not then Just me with the tape in my head