Intro
Delphine and Ninth, slab out front the barbershop
Poured in '99, still holds the handprints where it stopped
My initials pressed in shallow, right beside the drain
Every kid who ever lived here left a little of they name
Verse
I was nine with a stick, wet cement soft as clay
Wrote L.F. under Marcus, both of us the same age
Marcus wanted out the fast way, said the block was a cage
I told him patience is a muscle, he said patience don't pay
Watched him run for Curtis money, corner store on Delphine
Watched his sneakers get faster than the sirens could be seen
Two years later same slab, different name got laid beside mine
Chiseled deeper this time, permanent, not just a sign
That's how the block remembers, not obituaries, concrete
Every crack a small headstone for a kid who lost the heat
I kept my hands empty, kept my collar buttoned tight
Took the job at the depot, clocked in every single night
Wasn't braver than Marcus, just scared of a different kind
Scared of my momma's face if she read my name that time
So I write my rent checks like I'm paying off a debt
To a name in the sidewalk that ain't cashed a check in years yet
Chorus
Concrete testament, every name still holding ground
Block don't forget nobody, it just writes it down
Some get remembered walking, some get remembered still
Concrete testament, and the sidewalk's holding the bill
Verse
Ten years later I'm the one they ask to vouch
For young boys running product off my old front porch couch
Say I made it out, say I know the way to climb
I say the ladder that I climbed got rungs of borrowed time
Told Reggie's nephew put the stick down, learn the trade
Watched him nod like Marcus nodded, watched the choice get made
Anyway he wrote his name up under mine last spring
Small and shaky, first time trying, didn't mean a thing
Until the second letter got added, deeper, dark, and full
His momma poured a candle where the writing used to pull
I stopped walking that way home, took the long route round the block
Guilt's a kind of weather that don't care what door you lock
But loyalty ain't standing still while somebody else's gone
It's coming back to teach the next one how the story's drawn
So I bring my folding chair, sit out front the barbershop
Teaching kids the alphabet don't have to be the block
Chorus
Concrete testament, every name still holding ground
Block don't forget nobody, it just writes it down
Some get remembered walking, some get remembered still
Concrete testament, and the sidewalk's holding the bill
Bridge
Odell says the city's gonna repave it come July
Pour it fresh, erase the names, call it fixing drainage lines
Let 'em pour it, I got every letter memorized
Marcus, Reggie's nephew, mine, still living in my eyes
Concrete cracks eventually, but memory don't break
Ain't no contractor smoothing over what a name can make
Outro
Delphine and Ninth, new sidewalk, smooth and gray and blind
But I still walk it slow like the names is still behind
