Intro
Composition book behind the register, spine cracked with tape
Miss Coral wrote in pencil so the numbers could escape
Everybody on Delmar owed her something come the first
Debt wasn't shame in that store, it's how we learned our worth
Verse
Eight years old, a dollar short for a loaf of bread
She licked the pencil, wrote my name where "paid" should've read
Column on the left for owing, right side for what's gave
Half the block's whole story living in that gray-lined page
Junebug's mama got three months of milk marked in that book
Paid it back in garden tomatoes, Miss Coral barely looked
Twice at what she wrote, just nodded, tore the debt in half
Told him grace ain't a loan you chase, it's a seed you plant and pass
Watched the register drawer come up short on a Friday night
Watched her slide a candy bar to a kid too proud to fight
Told him square it Sunday, never asked the boy but once
Learned more about currency than any dollar ever taught
Store smelled like cardboard, cold cuts, and the chalk dust of the rent
Every name in pencil meant the trust was never permanent
Erasers wore thin circles where forgiveness got applied
That's the first ledger ever taught me how to stay alive
Hook
Ledger of small mercies, pencil, never ink
Everybody owes somebody more than what you think
Column on the left, column on the right
Grace is just a debt that never asks you twice
Verse
Nineteen years later, I keep my own book in my head
No pencil, just the memory of who showed and who fled
Rico got the rent money the month his sister got sick
Never wrote it down, but I remember every tick
Denim pocket heavy with
