Lyrics

I didn’t crawl out of my mother—
I was coaxed out by a hymn that didn’t want me.
Born in lace and silence,
raised on shame and polished pews,
they taught me that thunder in a girl
was unholy.

But I was born from a piano’s whisper.
She never judged,
never looked away
when I placed my wounds between her teeth
and said, “Play me.”

They told me, “Close your legs. Cross your heart.
Be silent. Be small. Be saved.”
But silence is a weapon too—
and I sharpened mine until it sang.

They asked why I bled on the bench.
Why the girl didn’t scream.
I told them—
“This is how a witch prays
when God has gone deaf.”

They called me a problem.
Red hair. Mouth like a match.
Too loud for Jesus.
So I sang—
“Father Lucifer, you never looked so sane,”
because I had to flirt with devils
just to reclaim what the saints erased.

They said,
“Little earthquakes don’t kill.”
But the right tremor
can crack a rib
and let the ghosts escape.

I learned to cry in key,
to thread a scream into a song
so it sounds beautiful
while it ruins you.

“Me and a Gun and a man on my back,
but I haven’t seen Barbados,
so I must get out of this.”
That’s not a chorus.
That’s a body bag
stitched with melody.
It was a fuckin’ autopsy
sung a cappella
because violins can’t fix what he stole.

I’ve watched girls eat their tongues
just to survive dinner.
Watched women apologize
for the space their breath took up.
Watched little girls get rewritten
so the story stays clean.

But I remember.
And the piano remembers.
We always do.

They say,
“Why does she moan like that on stage?”
Because when the body is exiled,
the voice becomes church.
And my hymns?
They wear lipstick and bleed in C minor.

I don’t want your applause.
I want your discomfort.
I want you to flinch—
like I did
when metaphor replaced truth
and survival became
a dirty word.

They called me
“Cornflake Girl,”
like I’d abandoned the table.
But the table was rot,
and I do not sit
where betrayal is served.

You want soft?
Go find another prayer.
I don’t sing.
I summon.
I don’t play.
I bleed.

Still—
I rise.
From under the altar,
from vinyl and ash,
from every man
who called my rage off-key.

Darling—
this is the key.
And I turned it
in every broken girl’s throat
so we could all
finally
sing.