Block Ledger Blues

Intro

Composition notebook, spine cracked twice

Uncle Renny's handwriting still bleeding through the lines

Corner store don't take a card, so the debt gets penciled in

Verse

Uncle Renny left the book, said keep it honest, keep it locked

Every name that's in there owe some money or a knock

Ms. Odessa, three weeks late, but she fed me every Tuesday

So I cross her debt in silver, write it paid some other way

Dominic still owes since oh-nine, moved to Charlotte, ghost

But his mother still on Ellery, so the balance stay close

I don't chase it with my hands, I just chase it with my eyes

Watch who nods too fast, who won't look at you when they lie

Corner store got closed accounts stacked like a filing cabinet

Every column got a story, every number got a habit

Marcus paid it back in favors, fixed my cousin's Honda brakes

Some folks pay it back in silence, some in whatever it takes

I inherited the weight before I learned to spell my name

Learned that debt ain't only money, debt is memory and shame

Every eviction, every funeral, every borrowed twenty spot

Living in the margins of a book that never got forgot

Hook

I keep the ledger, block don't forget

Every favor, every dollar, every debt

Pencil marks don't fade like people do

I'm the only proof that some of this was true

Verse

New landlord came around, said he'd buy the book off me

Offered me a stack of twenties, told him keep your fee

He don't know Odessa's silver crossed out ain't erased, just healed

He want the names so he can price the block by what's revealed

Sat with that offer three nights, kitchen light still humming

Weighed what I'd lose in trust against the money coming

My cousin said just sell it, page don't feed you, cash does

Told him some things ain't for sale, that's just how the math was

Copied every entry into three more books that same week

Hid one in the ceiling tile, one behind the bathroom sink

Third one stayed in my back pocket, spine cracked, ink gone thin

Cause if the block gets sold from under, memory still win

Odessa passed last winter, debt still marked in silver ink

Didn't cross it fully, left a corner so I think

Of how she always overpaid me back in what she had

Ledger ain't just numbers, it's the proof that we were glad

Hook

I keep the ledger, block don't forget

Every favor, every dollar, every debt

Pencil marks don't fade like people do

I'm the only proof that some of this was true

Bridge

One day the pencil's gonna shake too much to write

Some kid on Ellery inherit what I kept upright

I ain't scared of dying broke, I'm scared the names erase

Cause losing debt means losing every face that debt replaced

Renny's in there still, his entry never closed

Some things you don't pay off, you just carry as you grow

Outro

Composition notebook, spine cracked three times now

Block don't forget, long as somebody keeps the vow

I keep the ledger