Iron Psalms for the Marginal (Version 2)

Intro

Broke scale, bent compass, still I'm moving north

Every map they sold me led me off the course

Verse 1

Started in the basement with a broken tape machine

Fingers on the buttons, dreaming in between

Landlord at the door, I'm mixing through the night

Rent is due on Tuesday, studio my only light

Brother doing ten years, wrote me from the pen

Said keep the sound alive, we gon' build again

I sold my winter coat to book a studio

Slept in borrowed corners, let the cold just go

Momma took two shifts, I took the long way up

Every bar a brick, I'm building from the dust

They said the odds don't move for people such as us

I said watch the weight shift when you carry just enough

Four a.m. the space heater humming like a prayer

Cracked knuckles on the board, I'm threading through the air

Uncle said the struggle gonna break you down to bone

I said that's how the metal learns to stand alone

Chorus

Pressure turns the coal to diamonds in the dark

Every scar's a sermon, every wound's a spark

Watch the rust turn gold, watch the ash rebuild

This is how the marginal get legendary filled

Verse 2

Corner store arithmetic, I'm counting what I'm owed

Dimes and silver quarters from the work along the road

Cousin made it out but left his shadow in the block

Said the price of rising means the ones behind you stop

I'm writing through the silence, keeping vigil with the lost

Every line's a lantern for the ones who paid the cost

Debt collector calling, but I'm calling out the names

Of the ones who held the line before the world knew fame

Sister in the hospital, I'm sending half my check

Robbing Peter's verses just to pay what Peter's owed yet

They measuring my worth in what I'm bringing to the table

I'm measuring my worth in every voice I'm calling able

Cold coffee, ash tray, three a.m. agenda

Writing down the stories that the streets could never send up

This pen's a pry bar for the ones locked in the dark

I'm the voice the voiceless kept alive inside their heart

Chorus

Pressure turns the coal to diamonds in the dark

Every scar's a sermon, every wound's a spark

Watch the rust turn gold, watch the ash rebuild

This is how the marginal get legendary filled

Bridge

They said stay small, stay silent, stay in place

I said watch me make a kingdom from this space

Broken things don't ask for permission to survive

I'm the proof that bent don't mean that you can't rise

Verse 3

Twenty years of fighting just to earn a single breath

Wrote my name in margins, still they say I ain't earned yet

But I'm here, translating all the suffering to song

Every note a testament, a proof I held on long

The block don't build monuments for people such as we

So I'm carving it in verses, let the legacy be free

My mother's hands were callused, now my fingers know the way

I'm her sons and her daughters, every word I say

Grandmama spoke in psalms while folding other people's clothes

Now her grandson's speaking truth in every bar that flows