Verse 1
Fourth floor walk-up, Sharpie tally on the door
Counted debts in scratches, kept the score
Fence wire caught my palm at seventeen
Running product for a cousin, kept the family clean
Denim jacket soaked in copper, wouldn't wash it out
Wore it like a ledger, wore it like a drought
Corner store on Delmar knows my face by the limp
Traded blood for credit, traded credit for the imp
Uls that come when winter cuts the block in half
Learned to read a bruise the way you read a graph
Pre-Chorus
What's a wound worth when the rent's still due
What's a mark worth if it carries you through
I've been counting mine since '92
Chorus
Scars fold into currency
Spend what the skin remembers
Every mark's a receipt
Paid in pieces, not surrender
Verse 2
Mama's kitchen table, stitched my brow with thread
Said a needle's cheaper than the hospital bed
Learned to hold the pain the way you hold a note
Cash it when you need it, keep the rest for hope
Nine years later, same table, different son
Teaching him the tally, teaching him to run
From the debts that ain't his but land on him anyway
Told him every scar's a coin, spend it right one day
Barbershop on ninth street, they call me by my cuts
Not the flashy kind, the kind that earns you trust
Pre-Chorus
What's a wound worth when the rent's still due
What's a mark worth if it carries you through
I've been counting mine since '92
Chorus
Scars fold into currency
Spend what the skin remembers
Every mark's a receipt
Paid in pieces, not surrender
Bridge
Some nights I want the skin smooth, want the debt erased
Want a version of my story with no wire, no chase
But smooth skin never taught nobody how to stand
So I keep the ledger open, keep it in my hand
Chorus
Scars fold into currency
Spend what the skin remembers
Every mark's a receipt
Paid in pieces, not surrender
