The Attic Bedroom

Lyrics

[Intro]
Up past the main attic landing.
Past the sealed door.
Just one more flight.
The air gets hot up here.
Smells of cooked dust and time.

[Verse 1]
They call it a bedroom.
An afterthought.
Slanted roof, one dormer window staring north.
No name on the door, no mention in the books.
A place for someone convenient to forget.
A third cousin, a governess between posts.
Someone whose story ended before it was worth writing down.
The wallpaper sweats in the July heat.

[Chorus]
But every room keeps a record.
Even this one.
The record here is silence.
The deep, settled quiet of a life lived under the eaves.
The only proof is a single brass button, wedged in the floorboards.
And the dust remembering the shape of a small bed.

[Verse 2]
At 2:17, the sun finds the dormer.
For eleven minutes, a galaxy of dust motes.
You can taste the old insulation, metallic on the tongue.
I step toward the north wall.
The floor gives a low, tired groan.
The sound of a hundred seasons.
The sound of someone pacing, waiting.
For a letter? A meal? The end of the day?

[Chorus]
Every room keeps a record.
Even this one.
The record here is silence.
The deep, settled quiet of a life lived under the eaves.
The only proof is a single brass button, wedged in the floorboards.
And the dust remembering the shape of a small bed.

[Bridge]
No tragedy here. No dramatic exit.
Not the sick room or the nursery.
This was just storage. For a person.
Someone who polished the family silver, and never ate with the family.
Came up here bone-tired, listened to the rain on the shingles inches away.
And one day, a button came off a coat.
A small loss.
Then, a larger one.

[Outro]
The dust settles.
The sun moves on.
The room returns to its work of being empty.
Of holding this space.
The brass is dull. No maker's mark.
Just a small, round, silent fact.