"reprieve" by Ani DiFranco

(thanks to Jessica and Anna)
manhattan is an island                                                          
like the women who are                                                          
surrounded by children in the car                                               
surrounded by cars                                                              
                                                                                
or manhattan was a project                                                      
that projected the worst of mankind                                             
first one and then the other                                                    
has made its mark on my mind                                                    
                                                                                
it's sixty years later near the hypo-center of the a-bomb                       
i'm standing in the middle of hiroshima                                         
watching a twisted old eucalyptus tree wave                                     
one of the very few lives that survived and lives on                            
remembering the day it was suddenly thousands of degrees                        
in the shade                                                                    
                                                                                
and what all of nature gave birth to                                            
terror took in a blinding raid                                                  
with the kind of pain                                                           
it would take cancer so many years just to say                                  
                                                                                
oh to grow up gagged and blindfolded                                            
a great big mans world in your little girls head                                
the voice of the great mother drowned out                                       
in the constant honking haunting the accident scene up ahead                    
oh to grow up hypnotized and then try to shake yourself awake                   
cause you can sense what has been lost                                          
cause you can sense what is at stake                                            
                                                                                
yeah it took me a few years to catch on that those days i catch everyone's eye  
correspond with those nights of the month when the moon gleans like an egg in the sky                                                                  
and men are using a sense they don't even know they have just to watch me walk by                                                                      
and me, i'm supposed to be sensible, leave my animal outside to cry             
but when all of nature conspires to make me her glorious whore                  
it's cause in my body i hold the secret recipe of precisely what life is for    
                                                                                
and the patriarchy that looks to shame me for it is the same one making war
and i've said too much already but i'll tell you something more
to split yourself in two is just the most radical thing you can do
so girl if that shit ain't up to you, then you simply are not free
cause from the sunlight on my hair to which eggs i grow to term
to the expression that i wear, all i really own is me
                                                                                
i mean to split yourself in two is just the most radical thing you can do       
goddess forbid that little adam should grow so jealous of eve                   
and in the face of the great farce of the nuclear age                           
feminism ain't about equality, it's about reprieve                              

Ani DiFranco Lyrics brought to you by danah boyd since 1995