reprieve

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

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
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