[Verse 1]
I sit in the moulded-plastic chairs
Blueprints folded under my arm
Watching her red-line all my prayers
She says my egress won't vent the harm

[Chorus]
She stamped INSUFFICIENT LATERAL
BRACING across my heart in red ink
My emotional egress windows
Won't ventilate what I think
She says my snow-loads miscalculate
The weight of my past on the frame
Until she releases the holdback
I'm a squatter in my own ribcage

[Verse 2]
I trace my revisions on onion-skin
Paper thin as new ice on the bay
I can provide the letter to win
Signed and sealed by the engineer's say
But she says my past is too heavy
For the beams that I claim will hold true
And the wind-load of memory's levy
Is breaking on through

[Bridge]
Forty years of frost heave in my chest
Waiting on occupancy just to rest
Municipal codes weren't built for this ache
Every permit I file is a mistake

[Chorus - building]
She stamped INSUFFICIENT LATERAL
BRACING across my heart in red ink
My emotional egress windows
Won't ventilate what I think
She says my snow-loads miscalculate
The weight of my past on the frame
Until she releases the holdback
I'm a squatter in my own ribcage

[Outro]
In the moulded-plastic chairs
With these blueprints
And her red ink
Waiting