Andrea Gibson - Your Life lyrics

It isn't that you don't like boys
It's that you only like boys you want to be:

David, with his jaw carved
Out of the side of a cliff

Malcolm, who doesn't have secrets
Just stories he owes no one

Chris, the basketball hero with a tic
Blinks fifteen times when he makes a shot

You spend hours blinking in the mirror
Pretending you're a star like him

Mary Levine calls you a dyke
And you don't have the language
To tell her she's wrong

And right so you just show up to her house
Promising to paint your fingernails red

With what will gush from her busted face
If she ever says it again

You're in the 7th grade you don't
Even know you want a girlfriend
You still believe too much in the
People who believe in Jesus

To even feel that desire
Through it's hell threat

You just want to kick your desk on
The way to the principal's office
Slouch in detention
Want to cut your hair and spit

Out whatever you don't want in your mouth
Your own name even, skirting around the truth

You don't yet know the boys
Are building their confidence on stolen land

But you do worry the girls might be occupied
With things you will never understand

Won't ever
Ever be good at you take one pretty step
And feel like you're pouring bubbles

Into your own bloodbath you don't
Want a soft death
You want a hard life that is your life

Your life in the locker room
That doesn't stop demanding
You keep your eyes on the floor

Your life at the prom where you'll run home
In a snowstorm
Chucking your last pair of heels

In a snowbank, realizing you are the only boy
You ever wanted to tear your dress off for

Your life the first Christmas you spend
Alone the years you learn
To build your family out of scratch

Your life when someone drags you
From a restroom by the collar of your coat

Your life every time
Airport security screams
Pink or blue? Pink or blue?
Trying to figure out

What machine setting to run you through
Choosing your life

And how that made you into someone
Who now often finds it easy

To explain your gender by
Saying you are happiest
On the road, when you're not here
Or there, but in between

That yellow line running down the
Center of it all like a goddamn sunbeam

Your name is not a song you
Will sing under your breath
Your pronouns haven't even been invented yet

You're going to shave your head
And drive through Texas

You're going to kill your own god
So you can fall in love for the first time

They're going to keep telling you
Your heartbeat is a preexisting condition

They're going to keep telling you
You are a crime of nature

And you're going to look at
All of your options and choose conviction

Choose to carve your own heart out
Of the side of a cliff

Choose to spend your whole life telling
Secrets you owe no one to everyone
'til there isn't anyone who can insult you

By calling you what you are:
You holy blinking star

You highway streak of light
Falling over and over for your hard life

Your perfect life
Your sweet and beautiful life