Second Shift

I come home with the hours missing Same shoes, cleaner hands There’s a stranger who wears my face all day And I never shake his hand

Pre-Chorus

You agreed to the terms You just weren’t in the room You said yes with a mouth That somebody borrowed from you

Chorus

He works the second shift The one you’ll never see He does the thing you couldn’t So you could stay asleep and clean Don’t wait up Don’t ask where he goes There’s a door inside your day And a man behind it you don’t know

Verse 2

They call it a feeling When you can’t recall your week They gave the ache a softer word So you’d stop trying to speak They said the seeing was the sickness Said the noticing was strain Wrote you a quieter version And filed the rest away

Pre-Chorus

It isn’t in your head It’s in the paperwork The part of you that screams Got reassigned to someone else’s work

Bridge

You keep asking who’s doing this to you. Wrong question. It’s already been done. You just weren’t home for it. The stranger’s not the monster. The stranger’s the receipt. I’m not here to wake you up. I’m just the noise that leaks under the door of a room you didn’t know was yours.

Breakdown / Chant

There’s a you that stays There’s a you that goes There’s a you that signs There’s a you that knows There’s a you that stays There’s a you that goes There’s a you they kept And a you they chose

Final Chorus

He works the second shift The one you’ll never see He carries what you buried So the surface stays serene Don’t wait up Don’t learn his name Because the day you shake his hand Neither one of you’s the same

Outro

They didn’t take anything. Look — it’s all still here. It’s just that half of it answers to a different name now, and it’s very, very good at its job.