Ledger of Bones (Version 2)

Intro

Kept a ledger in my ribs, every debt I owed

Every mile on broken knees, every stone I rolled

Mama's fingers in the dirt, Pops' silence in the cold

Some men read the stars—I read the price of getting old

Verse

Watched my uncle split his wages seven ways on Friday nights

Rent and school fees, medicine, and shoes that fit just right

He kept a notebook—chicken scratch, no decimals, just lines

One mark per mouth he fed, one mark per time we survived

Sister quit her sleep at sixteen, cleaning rich folks' homes

Came back with their soap smell and blood under her nails alone

Said the money's good but daughter, dignity's the cost

I told her every scar's a contract, nothing in this world is lost

Saw my grandmother count coins on the kitchen table's edge

Stack them by the dollar, pray them into bread

She never bought herself a thing that wasn't secondhand and worn

But she built a house from nothing—four rooms, a yard of corn

That's the math I learned before they taught me how to count

That's the ledger that I carry, that's the only truth I mount

Chorus

Every bone I broke is a step I take

Every scar they left is the road I make

Ledger of bones, I'm reading it straight

Ledger of bones, I'm reading it straight

Verse

Father worked the docks from dark to dark, no overtime, no praise

Just the weight of crates and weather wearing grooves into his face

He taught me how to read a man by how he holds his jaw

How the smallest act of showing up becomes the only law

I was small enough to follow him through gates at half past five

Watched him move like purpose, watched him choose to stay alive

Not the kind with fanfare—just the kind that doesn't quit

Just the kind that knows the difference between breath and benefit

Now I'm older than he was when his body finally bent

And I carry what he carried, every muscle, every cent

Not the money that we gathered, but the silence that we kept

The agreement that we made but never once had to accept

Chorus

Every bone I broke is a step I take

Every scar they left is the road I make

Ledger of bones, I'm reading it straight

Ledger of bones, I'm reading it straight

Bridge

They ask me how I move so calm when everything's on fire

I tell them that my people taught me how to read the wire

How to find the current running underneath the pain

How to turn the weight they gave me into something I can claim

This ain't poetry, this is proof—the way we still stand tall

This is ledger, this is bone, this is having nothing and giving all

Outro

Kept a ledger in my ribs, balanced to the bone

Every debt repaid in blood means I ain't never alone

Every mark my people left is a map that leads back home

Ledger of bones, ledger of bones