Rent Money Prophecy

Intro

Mama kept a composition book, corner torn, spine cracked

Wrote her dreams in pencil, cashed them out on the first of the month

Landlord banging twice, she'd flip a page and smile

Said the numbers never lie if you read the water right

Verse

Third floor kitchen, kettle screaming past nine

Mama pours the grounds out, reads the swirl like a sign

Says she seen a red door sleeping, calls that a five

Says she seen her mother's hands, calls that an eight, alive

I'm eleven, watching, holding pencil steady

Circle up the digits 'fore the corner man gets ready

Lottery counter glass fogged, Duante behind the till

Takes her dollar, prints the ticket, never asks if it'll fill

Landlord Mr. Petrosian knock like a metronome

Two-fifteen every first, standing outside our home

She'd meet him with a number folded soft inside her palm

Say give me till Thursday, he'd sigh but he stayed calm

Sometimes it hit small, covered half of what we owed

Sometimes it hit nothing, we'd stretch the beans and go slow

But she never stopped the dreaming, never stopped the scratch

Said the ceiling leaks in patterns if you learn to watch

Chorus

It's a rent money prophecy, written in the steam

Mama's dream book table, paying debts with a dream

Landlord at the door, we still holding on

Rent money prophecy, keep the lights on

Verse

She's gone eleven years, I kept the composition book

Spine held with duct tape, still know right where to look

Got my own kitchen now, kettle's the same worn brand

Boil the water slow, let the grounds read my hand

Landlord's name is different, same knock though, same beat

Rent's up forty dollars, still due on the same street

My daughter's six, she asks me why I write in a book

I tell her some things ain't about the number, it's the look

Burnt my thumb on the spout once, February cold

Scar sits there quiet like the ones her palm would hold

Some months the ticket's paper, some months it's just my check

Either way I'm circling digits like it's saving my neck

Faith and math both liars, but they both still pay the bill

Learned that from a woman with a pencil and the will

I don't trust the swirl now, not the way she did

But I still write the numbers down for my kid

Chorus

It's a rent money prophecy, written in the steam

Mama's dream book table, paying debts with a dream

Landlord at the door, we still holding on

Rent money prophecy, keep the lights on

Bridge

Truth is the numbers rarely hit, we made it on the hustle

Extra shifts and borrowed cash, that book was just the muscle

Kept us moving when the fear got loud at 3 a.m.

Kept her steady, kept me steady, that's the real amen

I don't play the lottery, but I kept her pencil case

Sometimes hope's a ritual, not a payout, not a race

Outro

Composition book sits closed now on my shelf tonight

Rent's paid, lamp still burning, I sleep without a fight

Still hear her in the kettle when the water starts to hum

Rent money prophecy — that's where I come from