The Ledger Kept (Version 2)

Verse

Six a.m., the city still asleep

Concrete breathes the cold it kept

My eyes cut through the dark like a knife through silk

The block don't ask for dawn, it just wants will

I keep the numbers on a piece of cardboard taped to my door

Every dollar's got a face that I never know before

Momma called it hustle when she saw the cash coming in

Said

Son you're making something out the nothing

I was just reading what the city wrote in black and white

Every bill I counted had a story underneath it

Someone's rent, someone's hope, someone's breath

The system never credited me for the hours that turned to dust

So I kept my own books, one by one, no trust

Pre-Chorus

Nobody gives a ledger to the broke or nameless

I became the one who wrote it in return

Now they talk about

some kid from nothing