Still Counting Scars (version 2)

Intro

Cold porch light, I'm counting scars again

(still counting)

Every mark's a mile I walked, not where I've been

Verse

Fourth floor walk-up, ceiling leaking rust

Momma's Bible open, faith and cracked drywall dust

I was seven, tracing routes on grocery receipts

Learned to add up hunger 'fore I learned my feet

Seventeen, cold hands wrapped around a mic

Studio was a closet, one bulb for the light

Booked a session, walked eight miles through the sleet

Rhymed on empty stomach, made the silence keep the beat

Twenty, lost a brother to a block that don't forgive

Wrote his name in Sharpie on the wall where I live

Every scar's a receipt for a lesson I bought

Every failed hook taught me harder than I thought

Landlord banging, I'm behind two months again

Still I'm counting bars like I'm counting scars, my friend

No safety net, just the calluses I grew

Turned the static into rhythm, made the pain construe

Chorus

Still counting scars, still climbing the stairs

Every busted knuckle proof that I was there

Ain't erasing nothing, wear it like a crown

Still counting scars on the way up from down

Verse

Twenty-three, got a booth that ain't borrowed no more

Paid it off in cash from the shows and the tours

Momma got new hinges on that old front door

Still I drive the same block just to remember the score

Kept the busted Nikes on the shelf like a trophy

Reminder of the winter when the heat bill was sloppy

Every dollar that I earn, I split it three ways

Half for the future, half to erase old debt days

Critics say I switched up, say the sound got too clean

Nah, I just learned how to season what I mean

Same fire, different pot, I'm cooking generational

Turning old scars into a story rational

Late nights still hit different, ghosts still ride along

But now I write them letters, put 'em into the song

Every verse a mirror of the war that I survived

Still counting scars like currency, keeping me alive

Chorus

Still counting scars, still climbing the stairs

Every busted knuckle proof that I was there

Ain't erasing nothing, wear it like a crown

Still counting scars on the way up from down

Bridge

Sometimes I stare at the mirror, count them one by one

Not for the pain no more, just for the war I won

Each line a lesson, each ache a compass true

Pointing to the man I swore that I'd break through

Outro

Still counting scars, but the count don't weigh me down

No, it's the map that led me out the drowning town

Every mark's a milestone, every ache's a key

Still counting scars, still becoming me