[Intro: one dark piano note, a phone buzzes twice] [Hook: cold, low, piano stabs on every line] Mama put the house up, so I'm puttin' you in Seventy-two hours, and the clock don't care we kin Run to every hole you got, I been in every one I'm the one who taught you how to hide, little brother. Run [Verse 1: low and measured, heavy boom-bap] Bond office, burnt coffee, and a fluorescent hum Mama in her Sunday hat, signin' like she's signin' for a son Thirty years of other people's floors inside that little house Every mop, every bucket, every "yes, ma'am" out her mouth Forty thousand on the bond. You swore on Daddy's grave you'd show Monday, nine a.m., your chair was empty, and the whole block know I drag skips out of attics, out of trunks, out of walls Boss slid your mugshot 'cross the desk and said, "I'll make some calls" "Give it to the Kessler boys." Kessler kicks the fuckin' door and shoots the dog I said, "Nah. He's mine," and walked out into the mornin' fog [Hook: piano stabs] Mama put the house up, so I'm puttin' you in Seventy-two hours, and the clock don't care we kin Run to every hole you got, I been in every one I'm the one who taught you how to hide, little brother. Run [Verse 2: the hunt, piano gets busier] Cousin's couch still warm, cereal soggy, and the spoon still wet Pawn shop got Daddy's watch for forty. Cheapest thing you ever sold, and the worst one yet [Flow switch: double-time, he starts thinkin' like you] If I'm you, I skip the bus, 'cause the bus got cameras and a clock If I'm you, I don't call Mama, 'cause her phone's the first they watch If I'm you, I'm scared, and scared is eight years old again And eight years old is hidin' where the belt could never get in [Spoken, reading a text off his phone] Mama says, "Don't you hurt him. Bring him home" I can bring him in, or I can bring him home, Mama. Not both [Beat Switch: drums double, piano goes staccato, low strings surge] Dead drive-in off the highway, half a screen against the stars Speaker poles like headstones in the rows where they parked the cars Back of the screen, a ladder to a plywood room up top Where we hid from Daddy's belt until the cussin' and the TV stopped Seventh rung still squeaks. I stepped on it on purpose so you'd know Gave you one more chance to run. You heard it. You didn't go [Verse 3: half-time, close and quiet, then hard] Knees up in the corner, twenty-six and eight at the same time Said, "Took you long enough." I said, "You picked the only place I'd find" You asked me, "If it wasn't Mama's house, would you have even come?" I said, "Faster." Cuffed you in the front. The back is for the ones I don't love [Final Hook: piano and strings, no drums on the last line] Mama kept the house, and I put you in Seventy-one hours, fifty-nine minutes, and we still kin I knew every hole you had, 'cause I hid in every one I'm the one who taught you how to hide. Never taught you how to run
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