Intro
Corner store calculator missing the nine
Cashier taps it twice, says close enough is fine
That's how we learned to count, close enough to survive
Every number on this block already half a lie
Verse
Nine years old splitting bus fare three ways with my cousins
Two quarters short, we walked it, called that budgeting a dozen
Mama's check divided by the days left in the month
Sometimes the answer's negative, she still fed us at once
Learned to add the hustle 'fore I learned to add fractions
Corner boys taught percentages faster than the classroom actions
Ten percent for lookout, twenty if it's raining
Math on wet concrete, nobody's explaining
Watched my uncle's ledger, chicken scratch composition book
Every name he crossed out, another debt he shook
Subtraction hit different when it's people, not the cash
Column got shorter every winter, funerals came fast
I kept my own numbers, taped inside the closet door
Days clean, days working, days I ain't sure what for
Sum of all my choices never balanced like it should
But the block don't grade on paper, only if you're understood
Chorus
Add the hustle, subtract the name
Carry the weight, it never changes
Multiply the nights we came up short
That's block arithmetic, same math, same court
Verse
County phone give fifteen minutes, split it three-way call
Mama, sister, shorty, watch the seconds stall
New page in the ledger, now the count is days
Counted cinderblocks like interest that still stays
Canteen math is fractions, ramen the exchange rate
Traded snacks for stamps, wrote letters, learned to wait
Yard got its own geometry, angles keep you safe
Triangulate the blind spots, that's the only faith
Kept my numbers small so the count don't read the code
Every tally mark another mile down that road
Came home to the same block, same corner, same scale
Except now I add up mornings, not the time I did in jail
Sister graduated, added that up like a win
Subtracted three old faces that ain't never coming back again
Still the
