Intro
Phone stays off between the hours
Clock don't move the same way twice
Pocket got a weight that don't show
Verse 1
Cousin said the money moving faster than the cops
Twenty-two and running numbers from a basement with a lock
Told me sit down, take the envelope, don't ask where it goes
I was hungry, rent was louder than the voice that says no
Learned to count in hundreds, learned to walk without a sound
Learned that loyalty's a currency that gets passed around
Six months in, I'm holding half the block's emergency fund
Responsibility taste different when you're twenty-one
Marcus got arrested Thursday, case went cold by Friday night
Said my name once in a statement, I ain't seen a trial light
That's the weight, that's the wire—knowing what you know and staying mute
One decision made at nineteen got your whole life on mute
Momma asked me where the money come from, I just stared
Didn't have the words to tell her how the neighborhood prepared
So I paid the rent and held my tongue and wore the silence clean
Turned into the kind of man she raised me not to be
Chorus
Weight in the wire, can't lay it down
Carry it quiet through your hometown
Weight in the wire, can't lay it down
Every choice got a price, don't make a sound
Verse 2
Detective knocked on door at six, I knew exactly why
Cousin flipped, gave up three names, I was number five
But the lawyer came from somewhere, bail was posted clean
Somebody made a call, made sure I stayed unseen
That's how you know the ledger's real—it ain't written down
It's the way they move around you when you're the only sound
Didn't testify, didn't break, didn't nod or blink
Just became the kind of person nobody wants to think
About at Christmas, at the table when the family's fed
I'm the ghost that everybody knows but leaves unsaid
Girlfriend left me, said she couldn't love a man with debts like that
Debts that don't come with a statement, don't come back
Now I'm twenty-four and I can't remember what I wanted first
Before the envelope, before the thirst
Before I learned that silence was a skill you could exchange
For safety, for a future, for a slower kind of pain
Verse 3
Brother asked me last week if I'd do it all again
I said nothing for a long time, then I told him when
You got nothing but your name and a mother working doubles
You don't get to choose which kind of trouble
Comes knocking at your window at the end of every month
You just choose how much you carry and how much you don't say much
The wire don't get lighter, it just redistributes weight
Some days I wake up wondering if I could calculate
What my silence bought versus what it cost
Some days I forget that there's a difference at all
Chorus
Weight in the wire, can't lay it down
Carry it quiet through your hometown
Weight in the wire, can't lay it down
Every choice got a price, don't make a sound
Outro
Phone stays off between the hours
Clock don't move the same way twice
Pocket got a weight that don't show
