Verse 1

We watched them bolt the door and call it order

We counted what was lost behind the gate

Somebody swung a hammer at the mourning

And called the rubble progress, called it fate

But something cracked open in the cargo hold

A shell, a wing, a breath where there was none

We are the contraband that keeps on hatching

We are the trial that outlives everyone

Chorus

We carry the rhinestone and the reckoning

We carry the name they tried to sledge away

Between the breakthrough and the burning building

We find the note that holds the whole thing up

Steely, we rise — not clean, not certain

But here, we rise — we rise

Verse 2

A lifetime cleared, a verdict still unburied

The man walked free and then walked into death

And somewhere in a lab, a door swings open

A cure declared on someone's final breath

We trade in tariffs now instead of treaties

We match each blow with one of our own design

The architecture shakes in both directions

But still we draw the undemolished line

Bridge

Dolly knew it — heart and steel together

You can't dismantle what was built from bone

Every locked room has a ghost who testifies

Every broken wall once was someone's home

So we don't soften and we don't capitulate

We hatch from whatever cage they thought would hold

Outro

Steely, we stay — rhinestone and reckoning

Cracking open, stubborn, precarious, bold

Instrumental Outro

How did it make you feel?

A new song arrives tomorrow.