Receipts for Ghosts

Intro

Shoebox under the bed, corner torn like a wound,

paper curling like smoke from a stove in the room.

Verse

Miss Odell ran a tab when the fridge kept us starving,

wrote it in pencil, said pay me when you're carving.

Cousin Trey slid me bus fare, wrinkled and green,

said get to school, kid, don't end up like me.

Coach fronted the fee when my sneakers had holes,

said run it back double, never asked for control.

I kept every scrap like a debt that don't fade,

filed under names of the people who stayed.

Odell's store closed down, gate rusted and chained,

Trey's obituary folded, ink barely stained.

Coach moved to Georgia, phone number disconnected,

but the ledger in my chest still keeps them collected.

I can't Venmo a ghost, can't wire the dead,

so I carry the balance instead in my head.

Every name got a page, every page got a debt,

and the interest keeps climbing on what I ain't paid yet.

Chorus

I keep receipts for ghosts,

folded soft where the porch light goes,

can't pay it back, so I pay it forward,

still keeping receipts for ghosts.

Verse

Made it out, first check I cut was for the block,

addressed to Odell, came back stamped no such shop.

Drove past Trey's old porch, weeds up to the rail,

left flowers where the mailbox used to hold mail.

Tried the coach's old gym, they tore it down for condos,

glass towers where the free throw line used to hold hope, though.

So I started paying strangers what I owed the dead,

bought cleats for a kid whose father works two jobs instead.

Left a hundred on the counter at Miss Ruth's café,

said keep the change like Odell used to say.

Every good deed's a receipt with no name on the top,

just a debt getting paid till the reaching stop.

The interest ain't money, it's memory that compounds,

every ghost that I carry got a weight, got a sound.

I hear 'em in the register, the change hit the tray,

reminding me the tab don't ever fully go away.

Chorus

I keep receipts for ghosts,

folded soft where the porch light goes,

can't pay it back, so I pay it forward,

still keeping receipts for ghosts.

Bridge

My daughter found the shoebox, asked me what it's for,

I said these are people who kept me off the floor.

She started keeping her own, taped behind her door,

a candy wrapper marked with my name, nothing more.

Guess that's how it travels, one hand to the next,

the ledger never closes, it just changes text.

Outro

So when I'm gone, don't wire nothing to my name,

just keep a receipt for somebody else's rain.

Fold it soft, put it where the light still goes,

that's how you settle debts with ghosts.