Poor stranger with a guitar

VERSE 1
I’m just a poor stranger with a guitar on my chest,
A leathered map of miles and the prayers I never pressed.
My pockets keep the whisper of a coin that found the street,
But my hands hold the harvest of every song I meet.

VERSE 2
Calluses like constellations from the midnight and the dawn,
Each string's a thin horizon where the lost things sing along.
I walk the city alleys where the neon lights meet the rain,
And I trade my little story for a plate and a refrain... and a refrain

VERSE 3
Sing me home, oh quiet road, with that old familiar tune,
Where the moon keeps every secret and the morning keeps the truth.
I’m a stranger, yes, but listen—there’s a kingdom in my scars;
You can call me anything, I’m frets and passing names and stars.

VERSE 4
There’s an old guitar case, stamped with stamps of every town,
A church bell on the corner and a laundromat of sound.
I play for sleeping lovers, for the bus driver's late sigh,
For the child with sticky fingers chasing fireflies by night.

VERSE 5
Sometimes a woman cries, sometimes a stranger hums along,
And for a breath or two, the world bends toward my song.
No ledger marks my worth but the faces that I find,
A chorus of small mercies stitched into the line.

VERSE 6
I learned to mend my rhythm from the howl of empty trains,
To read the nights like weather, to count the coming rains.
My mother left a lullaby that smelled of lemon rind,
My father left a silence that I learned to make a line.

VERSE 7
So I bend a chord like willow wood and let the story lean,
Between the sparking streetlamp and the diner’s silver sheen.
If wealth is in the having, then I’ve nothing to declare—
But rich in remembering, I place my heart out there.

Verse 8
One day I’ll find a doorway with a name I can’t afford,
And maybe stay a little while, let the guitar meet a board.
Till then, I’m on the platform where the day and darkness meet,
A passenger of longing with a rhythm on my feet.

Verse 9
When winter writes its margins and the shops put out their lights,
I’ll still be on that corner shaping sentences from nights.
You might not know my story, just the sound that I have given.
Call me an orphan of the highways, but the road is how I’m living.

VERSE 10
So leave a coin, leave a smile, leave the warmth of your refrain,
I’ll leave behind a melody like bread and like a name.
I’m just a poor stranger with a guitar and open palms,
A little light, a way to pass you through the night with songs.