Black Hole

There’s a hole in the ceiling,

Where the stars pour through,

And the clock on the mantle

Keeps forgettin’ what it’s due.

There’s a voice in the heater

Singin’ low and out of tune,

Sayin’ time’s just a preacher

With a pocket full of ruin.

And there’s a black hole behind the old coat rack,

Swallowed my records, never gave ‘em back.

It don’t howl, it don’t moan,

It just hums like a dial tone—

That quiet kind of cold

That don’t leave you alone.

I lit a match in the pantry

Just to see if I still could,

Wrote my name on the window

In the breath I understood.

There’s a letter from nowhere

Taped up on the door,

It reads: “What you’re lookin’ for

Ain’t here anymore.”

Yeah, there’s a black hole in the attic floor,

Took my sleep, took my metaphor.

Ain’t no flame, ain’t no sound,

Just the world turned upside down—

And the silence spins around

Like a scratched-up 45.

You can try to fix the wiring,

You can patch the aching wall,

But every house has a room

Where the past still calls.

I’ve lived in many shadows,

But this one, it grew its own name—

And I still leave out a light,

Though I know it ain’t the same.

Now I play my old six-string,

It knows when not to speak.

There’s a wisdom in the wires,

And a gospel in the weak.

So I sing into the hollow

Like a whisper into snow—

Just me, my wooden echo,

And the slow pull of that black hole.