I learned my prayers on a wooden pew
Feet didn’t touch the floor
Mama said God sees everything
Daddy said don’t ask for more
The mirror felt like borrowed glass
I never knew my name
Just wore the words they handed me
Like a hand-me-down shame
The road was long before I walked it
The rules were written in red clay
I loved the South like a mother
Even when she looked away
I’m a country girl with a cracked-open soul
Trying to live what I feel
I don’t hate the land that raised me
I just hate the lies it sealed
I ain’t looking for forgiveness
I ain’t asking to be saved
I just wanna breathe in daylight
Without feeling misnamed
There’s a hush that hangs in August
Like it’s listening close
Every screen door slams like judgment
Every look says “we know”
I learned to talk in half-sentences
To survive the room
Learned silence is a kind of love
If you need to stay immune
I don’t think God made a mistake
I think people learned to be afraid
They built their heaven out of fences
And called it faith
I’m a country girl in borrowed skin
Trying not to disappear
I carry dust in my lungs
And hope I’ll outrun the fear
I ain’t trying to burn it down
I just want a place to stand
Where my name don’t sound like treason
In the mouth of this land
If existence comes before meaning
Then I’m still becoming whole
If freedom’s more than just surviving
Then let me own my soul
I don’t need a clean confession
I don’t need to be erased
I just want my life to feel like mine
And not some test of grace
I’m a country girl, I always was
Even when I hid my face
I learned love from back roads
And pain from saving face
If God is love, then love won’t cage me
Won’t ask me to pretend
I’ll keep walking through the dusk
Till the night learns who I am
The dust don’t ask questions
The wind don’t care who’s right
I’ll lay my head where mercy lives
And call that meaning tonight
AWeekTillSunrise
