Corner Store Scriptures (version 2)

Intro

Tape gone yellow on the window, curling at the ends

Flyers stacked like scripture, glass is where it all begins

Ms. Odalys don't peel 'em off, she just adds one more

Every corner of that window got a story from before

Verse

Nine years old reading missing posters like a menu

Dog named Rocket, then a girl named Renee right beneath you

Same width tape, same fading ink, same desperate plea

Learned the difference between losing something and a tragedy

Basketball flyer for the summer league, sixteen and under

Right next to a funeral program, kid I used to wonder

Why he stopped showing up to practice, now I understand

Casket closed, his mama's cursive shaking in her hand

Rent flyer taped for years, room for eighty a week

Watched three families cycle through before the landlord could speak

Job fair Saturday, bring resume, wear your good shoes

Half the block can't afford the bus fare, that's the catch, that's the news

I stood there waiting on the 40, reading like it's Sunday

Learning who got married, who got buried, who ran away

Never needed cable news, the glass told everything true

Every name up on that window used to walk these blocks too

Hook

Corner store scriptures, taped up on the glass

Tell you who gon' make it, tell you who ain't gon' last

Corner store scriptures, yellow tape don't lie

Read 'em on the way to school, learn how to survive

Verse

Fifteen now, my boy Dashawn got his flyer on the door

Benefit for his surgery, we sold plates to make the score

Sixty dollars, chicken and rice, everybody chipped a piece

Store let us tape it front and center, right above the lease

That's the thing about that glass, it don't discriminate

Grief and celebration sharing space, same real estate

Watched my cousin's mugshot make the local paper's front

Watched his daughter's honor roll get taped up months in front

Two truths living inches from each other on that door

Nobody erases nothing, that's the block's unwritten law

I started reading closer, started catching what it meant

Every flyer is a choice somebody made, every cent

Spent on paper, on ink, on hoping strangers care

Was a prayer nobody prayed out loud but taped it anywhere

Learned to read the silence between headlines and the dates

Learned the corner store don't judge you, it just documents your weight

Hook

Corner store scriptures, taped up on the glass

Tell you who gon' make it, tell you who ain't gon' last

Corner store scriptures, yellow tape don't lie

Read 'em on the way to school, learn how to survive

Bridge

Twenty-six now, I taped one up myself last week

Free tutoring, Tuesdays, bring a pencil, come and speak

Ms. Odalys smiled, said "your name's been on this glass before"

I said not like this, this time I'm giving, not keeping score

Outro

Tape'll yellow, corners curl, another name gon' rise

Glass keep every scripture that the block refuse to hide

Read it going, read it coming, that's how we survive

Corner store scriptures never learned how to lie