[Intro: Narrator, Young Female Spoken]
At six, 5B was quiet.
At seven, the door stood wide.
Their brass nameplate lay facedown
beside two strips of tape.

[Verse 1: Narrator, Young Female Rap]
One rusted screw where the family name had stayed,
A pale clean rectangle where the metal blocked the paint.
The movers stacked boxes beside a chipped wood chair;
Three winter coats hung in the cold morning air.
Northline's clerk checked each room, avoiding our stare.
Mrs. Cole said, "Last night, that family lived there."
No camera, no siren, no crowd at the gates,
Just a van at the curb and a pile of nameplates.

[Verse 2: Narrator, Young Female Rap]
Their youngest drew rockets in chalk down the hall;
One pass of the mop sent the planets off the wall.
Her father fixed bikes by the courtyard gate;
His wrenches left wrapped in a towel and crate.
Her mother grew basil in a chipped green pot;
One leaf stayed green when the boxes left the lot.
The new ad said "vacant" before they cleared the floor,
Then doubled the price when the van shut its door.

[Pre-Chorus: Narrator, Young Female Rap]
By noon, wide-angle photos are already online:
Fresh white walls, higher rent, immediate move-in time.
Their truck has not cleared the end of the block;
A silver lockbox hangs from their old lock.

[Chorus: Narrator, Young Female Rap]
Broken nameplates, blank by dawn,
The name gets lifted, the number stays on.
Broken nameplates, tape on the bell,
The hallway keeps what the listing will not tell.
Clear every closet, repaint every space;
That empty brass frame still remembers a face.

[Verse 3: Narrator, Young Female Rap]
That evening, a couple in polished black shoes
Walked through 5B with a broker in blue.
They praised the high ceiling, the "authentic" floor,
Stepped over the scrape from the family's front door.
"Calder is turning," the broker explained,
While chalk dust still clung to the baseboard grain.
By midnight, new envelopes slid through our gates:
Same Northline crest. More blank nameplates.

[Bridge: Narrator, Young Female Rap]
The pipes held their bathwater, the walls held their fights,
The kitchen held birthdays and late winter nights.
Fresh paint rolls over each height and each date;
It cannot tell you where they carried their crates.

[Instrumental Break][Bowed bass sustains beneath single piano notes while rimshots imitate screws falling onto tile.]

[Final Chorus: Narrator, Young Female Rap]
Broken nameplates, blank by dawn,
The name gets lifted, but the marks stay on.
Broken nameplates, tape on the bell,
The hallway keeps what the listing will not tell.
Polish every handle, repaint every space;
That empty brass frame still remembers a face.

[Outro: Narrator, Young Female Spoken]
I screw the plate beside the mailboxes.
Not back on 5B.
Somewhere nobody can miss it.
