[Intro: spoken, quiet, metal chair scrape] Church basement. Coffee urn hiss. Same folding chairs. Same Tuesday. I sit in the back like a guest who might leave. [Verse 1: measured boom-bap, clear, concrete] Day one I could not say the word out loud I said I had a problem with evenings. Cute. Cowardly Sponsor did not laugh. Just pointed at the back table Dented thermos. Green. Tape on the handle with no name He said if you stay, pour from that. If you leave, leave quiet I stayed because leaving required standing and my legs were rumors Fluorescent lights made everyone look honest and tired Someone cried into a napkin like it was a job I counted floor tiles. That was my whole contribution They said keep coming. I heard keep pretending Still came. Parking lot first. Car radio off. Hands on the wheel Twenty minutes of almost driving away. Then the door Coffee from the thermos tasted like metal and mercy I hated it. I drank it. Ritual beats preference [Hook: sung, warm, soft child choir mixed very low] Dented thermos on the back table No speech attached, just a steady label Pour it hot, sit down, stay One more Tuesday in the hard way (child choir, soft, low: stay one more) Dented thermos, quiet proof I did not heal. I showed up. That is the truth [Verse 2: denser recovery detail] Ninety days felt like a costume that almost fit Chip in my pocket scratched my thigh through jeans I kept touching it like a lucky coin with better manners Sponsor still never explained the thermos I asked once. He said some tools work better unnamed Fair. I had named every excuse for ten years Work story. Heartbreak story. Genius story. Tired story All of them needed a drink to finish the sentence Now the sentence ends in a basement with bad art Jesus poster crooked. Someone fixes it every week. It leans again I learn names. Forget names. Learn them again Anniversary cakes look silly until it is your slice I cried at sixty days over a grocery store wine aisle Not because I wanted it. Because I remembered wanting it like air Called him from the parking lot. He said breathe then buy water I bought water. Felt stupid. Felt alive. Both can sit together [Bridge: spoken over sparse drums and upright bass] Year mark. Same thermos. Fresh dent near the lid. I ask who hit it. He smiles. Says the truth bumps into things. [Double-Time: recovery rush, crisp, no commas] I used to outrun every mirror with a bottle and a joke and a brilliant midnight escape plan that died by morning in a sink full of sticky proof Now I outrun nothing at all I walk into thin-air rooms and I stay planted until they say my name without that old sideways shame Chip in the pocket dented thermos on the back table folding chair that knows my exact weight better than the late-night friends I lost to last call If you came looking for a sermon I will hand you a dent and a Tuesday and a handshake that does not flinch when it finally lands I count the floor tiles again then kill the counting because that counting was just another clever coward way to leave without standing up Sponsor nods once like a cheap metronome and that single quiet nod does more honest work than a hundred speeches I used to fake [Hook: sung, soft child choir mixed very low] Dented thermos on the back table No speech attached, just a steady label Pour it hot, sit down, stay One more Tuesday in the hard way (child choir, soft, low: stay one more) Dented thermos, quiet proof I did not heal. I showed up. That is the truth [Outro: spoken, chair scrape, urn click off] I wash the thermos once. He pretends not to see. Next Tuesday it is back. Dented. Full. Waiting.
