[Intro]
Ceiling.
Last entry in this notebook. Literally — I'm out of pages.
Fitting. Okay.
Inventory. Full year. Final.
[Verse 1]
The pink bottle's on the counter and it's not spotless anymore
There's a sticker on it — round, a little crooked, mine, hard-won:
DIVE CERTIFIED. Two weekends, one quarry, cold as sin, and I DID it
Because a beat-up orange bottle taught me stickers don't get bought
And underneath the crooked round one, there's a bar of open space
For the next one. And the next. The bottle's a resume now. It's got a face.
[Verse 2]
Status, full board: two-forty-five, slow negatives, his cue, my bar
Sixty pages. She's read forty. Sent back notes. REAL notes. Margin arguments.
The minor's now a double major. The new girl by the cardio wall said morning to me Tuesday —
out loud, with her whole mouth — and I took both earbuds out.
BOTH, ceiling. I heard myself do it. I almost cried mid-floor.
The currency works. I'm SPENDING it now. That's what it was FOR.
[Chorus]
First sticker — crooked, small, and mine
Nobody claps for a quarry in October, and the quarry didn't mind
It's not the man, it was never the man, and it was always partly him
Both true. Stay with me. One last time: both true.
I came for the watching
I stayed for the work
I leave every morning with a life accruing interest
First sticker
(...pending: nothing. It's ON. It's on the bottle.)
[Verse 3]
And Sunday — ceiling, the coda, because the universe signs its work:
I posted the quarry photo. Mask line, blue lips, thumbs up, deeply unglamorous
And the private account — the home, the cats, the whole museum — liked it
And commented. Four words. Ceiling. Four:
"Told you. Good miles."
And I put the phone face-down and sat with my coffee like a person who is known.
[Verse 4]
So here's the final finding, notebook, last page, for the record:
I never got the man. I got the curriculum, the floor, the seat, the name
Good-question girl. Still-here girl. The one who holds seven thirty.
A banner, small, but hung — they'd ask the floor about me now. They'd ask.
And someday somebody unfurnished's gonna study how I move
And I'll take both earbuds out, and ask what they're training for. And mean it.
[Chorus]
First sticker — and the bottle's just begun
Seven thirty holds, the pages grow, the negatives stay slow
The out-loud things stayed load-bearing
The flags stayed glass
He walked in like that — and now I understand the walk:
It's just reps, compounding, until a room adjusts
First sticker
(...started the account. Never withdrawing.)
[Bridge]
Mostly true, I told you once — chapter one, this ceiling, that girl
Then actually true. Then we'll see. Then it happened. Then on record.
Every refrain was a rung
And the ladder was never to him
It was always to this:
A crooked sticker. A held spot. Sixty pages. A name in a house.
True. Just true. No parentheses.
[Outro]
Notebook closed, ceiling.
Thank you for listening. You were a terrible conversationalist and a perfect witness.
Tomorrow: seven thirty. Sharp.
Green bag's across town. Mine's teal. It's got a luggage tag now.
Guess what it says.
(...clocked in)
The_SCAR
