Scars I Carry Light (version 2)

Intro

Denby Ave, four flights, the buzzer's dead again

Uncle Rey's key ring still rattling like amen

Verse

I learned to pick a lock before I learned to shave

Uncle Rey ran the building, taught me how to behave

Rent's due the first, heat go out the third

I'm the one they call when the landlord don't return a word

Radiator hissed steam, caught my wrist at seventeen

Skin came up white then pink, wore it like a badge unseen

Mrs. Alvarez's window cracked from the cold snap

Taped it up with cardboard, called it a stopgap

Papers on the door in red, thirty days to pack

I know every family's story, every crack in the drywall track

They call me super but I ain't got no super power

Just a screwdriver, some patience, one more borrowed hour

Scar on my palm from a busted pipe in 4B

Every mark's a memory, ain't nobody give it to me free

I carry it different, don't let it turn to stone

Learned the weight of keeping people in their home

Chorus

Scars I carry light

I don't let 'em cost me sleep at night

Every one's a door I opened wide

Scars I carry light

Verse

Landlord Grissom slid an envelope, thin and slick

Said just report who's late, I'll cut you into it

Six hundred to snitch on the family in 2C

Told him keep his money, that ain't currency to me

Larry lost his job, three months behind on rent

Patched his ceiling free, didn't ask where the money went

Tried to buy my silence like it's cheap as drywall dust

Traded my uncle's name for a check — I said not us

Block watched me turn it down, word spread down the stairs

Old Ms. Fenton brought me soup, said she's saying prayers

Grissom brought a new guy, called him efficient, cold

Kicked out 3B in winter, wouldn't wait for the cold to fold

Stood on the stoop while they carried out the crib

Held the door for the mattress, felt it press against my rib

Ain't no scar for that day, just a weight I still tote

Wrote her new address down on a napkin, folded like a note

Chorus

Scars I carry light

I don't let 'em cost me sleep at night

Every one's a door I opened wide

Scars I carry light

Bridge

Some nights I want to leave this block, get my own key cut

Somewhere the radiator don't bite, somewhere the doors don't rust

But then I think of Uncle Rey, gone now, ring still warm

Every super that quit made the vultures form

So I stay, teach a kid named Dre the trade

Show him how a busted lock gets saved, not laid to blade

Told him scars ain't debts you drown in, they're the proof you stood

Told him carry light, not heavy — that's the neighborhood

Outro

Denby Ave still standing, ring of keys still mine

Every scar I got's a light I leave behind