He keeps his ledger in the hours just before the night breaks right,
His arithmetic is absolute — you signed it in your skin —
Every compound interest rolled to what you owe him in the end.
He counts in increments of suffering, his currency is dread,
He’s been accumulating interest from the moment that you bled,
You can’t negotiate the principal or plead against the toll—
The Debt Collector’s coming and the balance is your soul.
He moves through the locked apartment in the hollow between three and four,
Sits beside the sleepless in the cold beneath the floor,
He doesn’t threaten, doesn’t argue — he just settles in and waits,
Patient as the season, certain as the closing of the gates.
He stood behind the consequence the morning of your worst decision,
Watched the fallout propagate with cold and careful precision,
He doesn’t hate you — hate would be a luxury he’s past —
He’s doing mathematics on a debt too large to last.
You can drink against the reckoning and sleep against the fear,
Dissolve into a different city, disappear from here,
But every forwarding address just routes to where the ledger sleeps—
The Debt Collector holds the compound of the obligations you keep.