Lyric

I learned to make my laughter small

Before it filled the room

I learned to read the table

Before I reached for food

They said I was so easy

So gentle, so well made

I mistook all that approval

For the shape I chose to take

Every little correction

Felt like care when I was young

A pin inside the fabric

A softer way to come undone

I was good in every mirror

I was quiet in the door

I knew how to need less

Than I was asking for

I was praised for every piece of me

That learned to disappear

I am still trying to forgive

The girl I was altered for

I kept my voice at dinner

Where nobody had to turn

I let my sharper questions

Fold before they burned

I wore the kind of patience

That made the grown-ups smile

I did not know my body

Had been leaving for a while

No one called it breaking

No one meant to make me small

But love can have a pattern

That does not fit at all

I was good in every mirror

I was quiet in the door

I knew how to need less

Than I was asking for

I was praised for every piece of me

That learned to disappear

I am still trying to forgive

The girl I was altered for

I do not blame the younger hands

That held the thread too tight

She was only trying to be loved

In the language she was taught to write

I would not pull her seams apart

I would not call her weak

I would sit beside her gently

Until she learned to speak

I was good in every mirror

I was quiet in the door

I knew how to need less

Than I was asking for

Now I touch the hidden edges

That were never really gone

And I am not the girl they altered

I am what she carried on

I am not the girl they altered

I am what she carried on