Weight of the Corner Store

Intro

Scale on the counter reads different every night I'm on it

Aunt Rosa's old machine, still balances what conscience won't get

Verse

Fourth summer running register, sugar dust on my sleeve,

Learned to read a face faster than I learned to read.

Nine PM the block gets loud, ten it gets quiet,

Eleven somebody's cousin walks in wanting to buy it.

I weigh the rice, weigh the beans, weigh the silence too,

Every ounce short on the scale is an ounce I owe true.

Marcus came in bleeding once, asked me to lie for the time,

Told the cop he'd been with me since a quarter past nine.

Wasn't with me. Wasn't near me. But I said it plain,

Watched the numbers on the scale not move, not gain.

That's the trade I make in fluorescent and grease,

Every kindness got a cost, ain't a single one free.

Rosa taught me weigh it twice before you call it right,

Thumb off the tray, let the truth find its own weight, its own height.

I still hear the register drawer sing like a hinge,

Every dollar that it swallows got a story on the fringe.

Chorus

I carry the weight of the corner store,

Every soul that walks through owes a little more,

I don't judge what's heavy, I just hold the door,

That's the weight, that's the weight of the corner store.

Verse

Sixteen now, Rosa's knees gave out on the stairs,

Handed me the keys like she was handing me her prayers.

Now it's my thumb on the scale past midnight,

My name on the awning catching all the streetlight.

Kept the same milk crate, kept the same cracked floor,

Added a camera nobody uses anymore.

Tyler's little brother comes in short for his lunch,

I round it down to nothing, call it breakfast on a hunch.

Word gets around that the store's still soft in the middle,

Some see mercy as an angle, try to run a little riddle.

Caught a kid palming batteries, could've called it in,

Instead I made him sweep the floor, made him earn back his skin.

Some nights the weight ain't grocery, it's a gun in a coat,

Ask me not to see it, ask me just to note

That he came, that he left, nothing else to declare,

I nod like the scale, balance it, don't judge what's there.

Chorus

I carry the weight of the corner store,

Every soul that walks through owes a little more,

I don't judge what's heavy, I just hold the door,

That's the weight, that's the weight of the corner store.

Bridge

They ask me how I sleep with all these debts in my head,

I tell them the scale don't dream, it just weighs what's said.

Rosa's in the hospital bed, still asks about the till,

I tell her it's balanced, tell her the block's paying still.

Truth is some nights I'm short and I cover it myself,

Truth is some nights the mercy costs more than the shelf.

But the door still opens, the bell still rings its crack,

And every soul that leaves heavier gives a little back.

Outro

Turn the sign to closed, wipe the counter down slow,

Weight don't disappear, it just waits for tomorrow's flow.

Same scale, same store, same hand on the same door,