Strong Signs 3:27

Somebody left a note on the door this morning
Said the fingerprints don’t match the man
Signed it in red with a borrowed conviction
Built a whole verdict on the back of their hand
The building’s on fire but the smoke alarm’s broken
Been ringing so long nobody hears
They dressed up the ashes in official language
And handed the bucket to the volunteer

Strong signs, they said
Strong signs of something I can’t see
Strong signs, they said
In a language that was never meant for me

You found the ghost in the machine
In the way I cut the line
You found the crime in the clean
In the rhythm and the rhyme
I been writing in the dark
On someone else’s wall
You get to throw the stone
I get to take the fall
Strong signs
Strong signs
That’s all

Twenty years of muscle memory bleeding
Into somebody else’s name on the page
The architect is never in the building
Just the scaffolding and me and the cage
They pulled a half a sentence from the wreckage
Called it evidence and sent the bill
I’m probably plagiarizing this confession
Standing in a courtroom I did not build

Strong signs, they said
Strong signs of something in my bones
Strong signs, they said
In a house I never got to own

You found the ghost in the machine
In the way I cut the line
You found the crime in the clean
In the rhythm and the rhyme
I been writing in the dark
On someone else’s wall
You get to throw the stone
I get to take the fall
Strong signs
Strong signs
That’s all

There’s no single source of truth
For the way a sentence breathes
There’s no instrument that measures
What it costs to disagree
So you dress the hunch in policy
And the policy in fear
And I’m standing in the wreckage
Of a fire I didn’t set
But I’m still here

You found the ghost in the machine
In the way I cut the line
You found the crime in the clean
In the rhythm and the rhyme
I been writing in the dark
On someone else’s wall
You get to throw the stone
I get to take the fall
Strong signs
Strong signs
That’s all