Scars for Interest (version 2)

Intro

Copper Street corner store, ledger under the counter

Ms. Odalys don't take cash first, she takes the story

Show her the mark, she'll tell you what it's worth

Verse

Fourteen summers, chain-link fence behind the school

Jumped it wrong, forearm split open like a rule

Nobody taught it but everybody learned the same

Blood on the concrete, spelled out like a name

Momma counted stitches, seven, kitchen chair

Said scars don't scream but they remember where

Copper Street corner store, Ms. Odalys kept a book

Lent on trust, not paper, by the way you looked

She'd study your knuckles, ask you what you bled for

Said a scar's a signature nobody forges more

I showed her mine at sixteen when the lights got cut

She loaned me forty, said pay me back in trust, not just cash

Been paying since, every winter when it aches

Interest ain't money, it's the memory it takes

Every scar collects like a debt left in the cold

Compounding quiet, never fully told

Hook

Scars for interest, every winter's due

Old wounds collecting what the summer never knew

Pay it slow, pay it steady, that's the only way I've grown

Scars for interest, still the only thing I own

Verse

Nineteen, vouched for Dre outside the barbershop

Showed the scar like a receipt, told them he won't stop

Three weeks later he ran off with Odalys' loan

Left me holding interest that was never my own

Block watched close, waiting on my collection day

Said the scar don't lie but the man wearing it might stray

I paid his debt in silence, added it to mine

Another line of interest scrawled between the spine

Learned collateral ain't just what you already paid

It's what you're willing to lose for the choice you made

Denim jacket got a rip where I sewed it shut myself

Kept the needle in the pocket like a lesson on the shelf

Every stitch a receipt, every ache a fee

Still I co-sign strangers 'cause somebody once did for me

That's the code that keeps the block from breaking down to dust

Not the money, not the paper, just the weight of trust

Hook

Scars for interest, every winter's due

Old wounds collecting what the summer never knew

Pay it slow, pay it steady, that's the only way I've grown

Scars for interest, still the only thing I own

Bridge

Kid named Elias came around, split lip, seventeen

Showed me his scar like a ticket, asked what it could mean

I told him keep it, don't cash it, don't let it run the score

Some debts you carry quiet so the next kid don't need more

Gave him what he needed, called it even, called it done

First loan on Copper