The Bicycle Room

Lyrics

The walls are closing today.
Need the air, need the friction.
Need the world to blur past.
Not the slow time of this house.
The fast time. The escape time.

Down from the Back Hall, taking the servant's stairs two at a time.
The air grows colder, thicker.
A flash of steam from The Laundry door, smelling of bleach and work.
Don't want that.
A burst of laughter through the felt of The Game Room door, smelling of cigars and rules.
Don't want that either.
Past the hum of the furnace, turning left where the concrete is stained.
This door. The one that sticks.

And here they are.
The sleeping horses, hanging in a line.
Silent velocity, rust on the promise of speed.
This whole room is a coiled spring.
A held breath before the race begins.
The Bicycle Room isn't about where you are.
It's about how fast you can leave.

The big one, the Schwinn from 1958.
Cracked leather seat, hard as a fossil.
Handlebar grips worn smooth by a boy's summer sweat.
One pedal down, waiting for a foot that's been gone for sixty years.
I touch the chain, and the smell of axle grease fills the air.
It isn't a smell. It's a low, resonant hum, the C-sharp of a world in perfect balance.
Ready to spin.

The room contains its own map.
A faint track in the dust shows the curve of the long driveway, the jump that was never landed.
I look into the spokes of the front wheel, and see a corridor of a thousand wheels, all spinning, reflecting a boy I never was, pedaling into forever.
This room remembers the race against the evening train.
A race he always won, in his head.
The bike knows. The bike keeps the score.

And here they are.
The sleeping horses, hanging in a line.
Silent velocity, rust on the promise of speed.
This whole room is a coiled spring.
A held breath before the race begins.
The Bicycle Room isn't about where you are.
It's about how fast you can leave.

A single spoke shivers.
The pedal makes one slow turn.
And then, stillness again.
But the air... the air is still moving.