Le Tuteur

Lyrics

[Intro]
Your hand is small inside mine.
The graphite tip of the pencil trembles over the paper.
You can feel the shape of the letter, but not its name.
Not yet.

[Verse 1]
We are tracing the curve of a 'G'.
My fingers a ghost over your knuckles.
A quiet pressure, a suggestion of the path.
Down the driveway, the old bicycle waits.
I remember the day, nineteen seventy-six, when they gave this feeling a name.
Before that, it was just a father's hand on the back of a seat.
A slow, breathless run down the block.

[Chorus]
I am the scaffold.
The temporary frame of wood and steel.
I am the training wheels that hum on the asphalt.
I am the whisper of the answer you almost know.
What we do today with my hand holding yours,
you will do tomorrow, all by yourself.

[Verse 2]
Now there is less of me in the motion.
The pencil moves with a life of its own.
A little shaky, but it is yours.
I'm jogging beside the bicycle now, not holding on.
My palm hovers an inch from your back.
A net made of air.
The wobble is still there, but you correct it.
You lean into the turn before I can say a thing.

[Chorus]
I am the scaffold.
The temporary frame of wood and steel.
I am the training wheels that hum on the asphalt.
I am the whisper of the answer you almost know.
What we do today with my hand holding yours,
you will do tomorrow, all by yourself.

[Bridge]
And then it happens.
The moment that is never documented.
The shift so quiet, it has no sound.
My hand pulls away.
You don't fall.
You don't even notice.
You just pedal faster, chasing the light down the street.
The distance between us grows.
Your signature on the page, in your own script.

[Outro]
The framework is dismantled.
The bolts are loosened, the planks carried away.
There is only the finished thing, standing in the sun.
And my hand feels the empty space.
The strange, proud lightness of being no longer needed.