Why Didn't You Tell Me

Lyrics

[Verse 1] You kept my drawings in a cedar box Every crooked sun, every paper fox When I asked why my hands knew what to do You said, “Some things just find their way to you” [Pre-Chorus] But the mirror in the hallway Never looked away It wore your tired expression In a younger face [Chorus] Mother, why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me call it mine? These hands, this heart, this borrowed fire Were your design inside my life You made a girl who could become you Then taught her not to ask the reason why Mother, why didn’t you tell me? I was your secret wearing my eyes [Verse 2] At sixteen, the kitchen spoon rose up You dropped your tea and filled my cup You said the house was settling again While every picture turned to face the wind I found your journal under winter clothes A sketch of me before my body rose Same small scar beneath the left eye Same storm drawn in the same blue line [Pre-Chorus] You wrote, “She’ll wake up slowly If she wakes at all” Then pressed the book beneath the floorboards Like a promise in a wall [Chorus] Mother, why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me call it mine? These hands, this heart, this borrowed fire Were your design inside my life You made a girl who could become you Then taught her not to ask the reason why Mother, why didn’t you tell me? I was your secret wearing my eyes [Bridge] Did you lose yourself creating me? Did you leave a piece beneath my skin? When I bend the room around a heartbeat Am I saving you, or letting you in? I don’t need a clean confession I need the shape of what was true If I am more than your reflection Let me choose what I become from you [Final Chorus] Mother, now I know you made me Not from blood alone, but from your light You gave me every hidden weapon Then held your breath to watch me fight I’m not the girl you kept from knowing I’m not the answer buried in your eyes Mother, you should have told me I was your beginning, not your disguise [Outro] In the cedar box, I leave the drawings A crooked sun, a paper fox If I carry what you gave me I’ll decide which doors it knocks