Intro
Grandmother's card, cardboard thin as skin
Ink gone brown where the hunger settled in
Every stamp a week she gave her share away
Said the mark don't feed you, it just counts the days
Verse 1
Nineteen and starving, snow stacked to the sill
Queue wrapped the block twice, nobody moving still
She kept a nail for scratching numbers on the tin
Five loaves a fortnight, split among her kin
Traded her ring for flour, kept the empty band
Wore it on a string so the guards wouldn't understand
Chalk on the doorframe, one line for the dead
One line for the neighbor she carried home instead
Bread line taught her patience sharper than a blade
Silence was currency, and quiet, how she paid
She scratched a rune for every mouth she couldn't feed
Called it superstition, called it planting seed
By spring the card was full, edges soft as cloth
Kept it folded flat beneath the almanac and moth
Said the marks remember what the memory forgets
Every rationed hour is a debt that never sets
Chorus
One mark for the hunger, one mark for the cost (counted)
One for every winter that we counted but we lost
One mark for the ones I carried, one I couldn't save
Every rune's a ledger for the mouths I have to save
Verse 2
Now I keep the habit, different kind of war
Scratch the wall in county, ninety days and four
Same nail, same patience, same rationed light
Counting what I'm owed instead of appetite
Traded time for silence, traded silence for release
Kept a tin of numbers underneath the piece
Called my momma Sunday, told her keep the faith
Said the marks don't lie, they just hold the weight
Learned to stretch a dollar like she stretched the bread
Feed the young ones first, eat what's left instead
Ledger in my pocket where the dope money been
Every scratch a witness to the life I'm living in
Some men count they blessings, I count what it c
