Kitchen Table Blueprint by Al’Clifford Winfrey)

Instrumental Intro

Verse 1

Mama kept a jar of buttons on the sill

I sorted them by color just to feel some kind of will

Granddad read the almanac and called the weather right

I asked him how he knew it and he said he watched the light

So I kept my own notebook full of little signs

Half of them were nonsense and the rest were borderline

But somewhere in the margins something started to connect

A thread I couldn't name yet but I wasn't going to neglect

Pre-Chorus

Every page I turned

Showed me what I hadn't learned

Every year I grew

Rearranged the whole damn view

Chorus

I'm learning how to read the room

I'm learning how to hold the weight

I stack the days like bricks and stone

And call it something I can make

I don't need anybody's blueprint

I don't need a polished name

I take the pieces that I'm given

And I build it all the same

Post-Chorus

Build it up, build it up

(Build it up, build it up)

Break it down, break it down

Break it down, break it down

Verse 2

Auntie taught me rhythm on a kitchen table top

Uncle taught me patience when the money wouldn't stop

Two houses two languages two ways to say a prayer

I carried both of them and made a third one there

Now I sit with contradictions like they're dinner guests

Pass the salt to reason shake the hand of all the rest

Nothing gets discarded nothing gets thrown out

Everything's a fragment of a larger thing somehow

Pre-Chorus

Every time I come back home

Nothing looks the same

Every circle that I close

Rewrites what I became

Chorus

I'm learning how to read the room

I'm learning how to hold the weight

I stack the days like bricks and stone

And call it something I can make

I don't need anybody's blueprint

I don't need a polished name

I take the pieces that I'm given

And I build it all the same

Post-Chorus

Build it up, build it up

(Build it up, build it up)

Break it down, break it down

Break it down, break it down

Bridge

Maybe the point was never knowing

Maybe the point was how to look

Maybe the answer's in the asking

Maybe I am the book

Breakdown

Test it

Question it

Tear it down and start again

Test it

Question it

Then rebuild it like a friend

Chorus

I'm learning how to read the room

I'm learning how to hold the weight

I stack the days like bricks and stone

And call it something I can make

I don't need anybody's blueprint

I don't need a polished name

I take the pieces that I'm given

And I build it all the same

Outro

Somebody walked here before me

Left a lantern on the road

So when I reach the place it fades

I'll leave my own for someone