Verse
Tar roof cracked like knuckles, six flights up from the street
Wire coop stitched by hand, chicken mesh and copper feet
Daddy banded every pigeon, called the color, not the name
Blue-bar, red-check, silver — each one wore a claim
Fed them cracked corn at dawn before the ravens came to perch
Black wings on the antenna, patient like they knew the worth
He'd race the fastest ones for purses folded in a sleeve
Said every bird you keep is a debt you learn to grieve
Pre-Chorus
How you pay a landlord with a thing that learns to soar
Daddy said the sky don't charge you rent you can't afford
Every loss he counted taught him something birds don't teach
Some things gotta circle 'fore they land in reach
Chorus
Ravens over rent money, circling black and slow
One bird buys the landlord, the rest we let go
Feathers on the ledger where the numbers used to bleed
Ravens over rent money, that's the price of what we need
Verse 2
Twenty years later, coop's mine, wire rusted at the seam
Sold the last two racers to cover a hospital scheme
Copper bands still jingle in a coffee can I keep
Ravens on the ledge now watching how I count my sleep
Landlord's son collects now, drives the block in something clean
Don't know his father's ledger got paid in wings and gray-green
I don't curse the crows for waiting, they just mirror what we owe
Every debt's got feathers if you watch it close enough to know
Pre-Chorus
How you pay a landlord with a thing that learns to soar
Daddy said the sky don't charge you rent you can't afford
Every loss he counted taught him something birds don't teach
Some things gotta circle 'fore they land in reach
Chorus
Ravens over rent money, circling black and slow
One bird buys the landlord, the rest we let go
Feathers on the ledger where the numbers used to bleed
Ravens over rent money, that's the price of what we need
Bridge
Turns out the ravens never wanted what we owed
They watched us learn to carry weight and still find road
Every bird I lost to hawks was one I learned to trust
The coop stayed standing longer than the debt turned into dust
Chorus
Ravens over rent money, circling black and slow
One bird buys the landlord, the rest we let go
Feathers on the ledger where the numbers used to bleed
Ravens over rent money, that's the price of what we need
