The Box Factory: Where Old Bones Breathe

Lyrics

They don't know your first name.
Just "The Box Factory."
Faded on the high brick wall.
I trace the letters with my eyes.

I can almost smell the pine sap.
Hear the hiss of the steam press, nineteen twenty.
The rhythmic clang of the saws.
Sawdust motes dancing in the sunbeams,
slanting through your tall, grimy windows.
You held the shouts of foremen,
the quiet lunches of workers whose names are gone.
Just dust on the loading dock now.

But your old bones, they're still breathing.
Heart of pine beams, holding strong.
They're breathing in the plaster dust and the morning coffee.
A different kind of song.
Where the heavy work was done,
now the quiet life goes on.
Your old bones are breathing.

The nineties came with hammers and a different kind of plan.
Tore out the belts, the gears, the iron heart of the machine.
Scraped a century of grit from the floors.
And the air changed.
From hot glue and cardboard fibers
to the sharp tang of wet paint, the smell of new beginnings.
Someone's sleeping where the staplers once fired.

And your old bones, they're still breathing.
Heart of pine beams, holding strong.
They're breathing in the plaster dust and the morning coffee.
A different kind of song.
Where the heavy work was done,
now the quiet life goes on.
Your old bones are breathing.

I run my hand along a reclaimed beam above the kitchen island.
Feel the notches, the stains, the story it won't tell.
A ghost of rust from a metal strap.
You hold it all in silence.
Every crate that left your dock for a train I'll never see.
Every unnamed hand that built a box inside these walls.

The sun still slants through the same tall windows.
Different light now.
Softer.
You're still breathing.
Yeah, you're breathing.