Intro
Leather-bound ledger, spine cracked down the middle
Uncle kept it under the register, called it the riddle
Every name in pencil, every debt paid in ink
Say the store stayed open 'cause nobody let it sink
Verse
Grandfather ran the corner store on credit and on faith
Wrote your name in that ledger when your pockets came up late
Rent man knocking Tuesday, kids ain't ate since Sunday
Uncle Ray slide a loaf and mark it down, said pay me one day
That's how the block survived when the bank shut its gate
Fifty names in that ledger, some crossed out too late
Mrs. Odell's boy got shot, debt forgiven, line struck through
Ashes on the counter where the candle for him grew
I was ten years old counting cans behind the register
Watched my uncle turn a hustle into scripture, half minister
Plate of eggs for the old man who fixed the walk-in freezer
No collateral but character, that's the only appraiser
Now the store's long gone, they paved it for a lot
Ledger's in my glovebox, still it's the only thing I got
Every name a chapter, every debt a testament
Paper thin and yellow but it never once bent
Chorus
We paid it back in favors when the money wasn't there
The ledger don't lie, it just remembers who was scared
Cross a name when it's settled, keep the rest in ink
That's the only bank that never once let this block sink
Verse
I picked it up at nineteen when the block picked me instead
Started my own version, kept it folded by the bed
Not currency, it's memory, every debt's a human face
Man who bailed me out in ‘Nine still got a permanent place
Wrote my mother's name in there the year she lost the lease
Wrote it off in gratitude, called the debt a piece of peace
Kept a column just for scars, another one for gates
The ones we opened for each other, the ones we had to break
Cousin Trell got twelve years, his tab still on the page
Send commissary money, call it interest on the cage
Some folks think it's soft to owe, I think it's how we breathe
Every plate we split at midnight is a debt we don't relieve
Rewrote it clean last winter, kept the old one in a drawer
Ash got on the cover from the space heater by the door
Still legible, still standing, like the hands that held the pen
This the only inheritance that outlives all of them
Chorus
We paid it back in favors when the money wasn't there
The ledger don't lie, it just remembers who was scared
Cross a name when it's settled, keep the rest in ink
That's the only bank that never once let this block sink
Bridge
They say the strong forget who fed them when they had nothing
I keep the record so the feeding don't stop counting
Every name still open is a mouth that's still alive
That's the only interest rate that ever let us thrive
Outro
Ledger's getting thicker, ink is running thin
Pass it to my nephew when the next chapter begins
Tell him cross the debts in kindness, not a single one erased
'Cause the unbroken keep the record even after they've replaced
