Levi The Poet - The Fort Lauderdale Five lyrics

It was love at first threat

Her knees went weak for confidence
So even though her friends
Said that she should "call it what It is
" she simply fell deeper in
Love and when he’d raise
His fists and ask her just who in the hell

She thinks that she is, she’d tell
Him it was all about Jesus, and

Submit

In 1976, she was too terrified to resist
And "authority" had already become a position
Synonymous with "God
" so apologies issued from proponents of
The covering couldn’t keep the
Fear out of her his tears
From the pulpit were a
Comfort at first but they
Pooled in shapes like
Convenience constantly redistributing
It's weight back and forth
Along the planks of a seesaw, and
You can only feign trustworthy for
So long before being
Cut off after someone with a golden ear
Hears the script
It appears as though there is such
A thing as a victim
Though she could never admit it until the
Pastor propositioned it's existence
(and specifically as it stood
In relationship to him)
And all of the sudden the
Movement is exposed as illusion
She said that the hardest thing she had to
Do was admit that she was abused
You never get it until you do

"i refused to use words like
‘stockholm’ or ‘syndrome’ or
‘hostage’ but it was a robbery and it
Was violent and it was 15 years
Of my life and i’m
Still trying to figure out who
The thief is and
Whether or not he broke down the door or if
I left it unlocked and invited him in"
At first you feel nothing
And then the anger seeps in let it
Be righteous at least something is

(keep forgiving)

They say that "rage is what
Happens inside when our
Soul finally awakens from living
A lie" and it doesn’t help to deny it there
Are stages to the scales that slide off of
Our eyes like serpents
Shedding skin and letting the death molt

"get it off of me"

The disillusionment manifests in stagnant
Melancholy and she
Keeps thinking there’s got to be a
Reason as clean as the teaching’s always been

It was love at first threat

But even though patty hearst defended her
Offense as duress affecting intent
It didn’t stand to
Deflect the judgement that found her
Compliant and guilty of theft
So who’s stealing from who?

I keep filing out confusion
From underneath my
Fingernails like gunshot residue
Like a constant
Reminder that i held a weapon
Too like i helped pull the trigger
And then deferred all of the
Blame to you like complicity
Written all over me
Like biblical masculinity that i
Crushed my wife beneath like she needed me
As the assurance of
Things hoped for but as yet unseen
Was the devil’s deceit so deeply
Indwelt that when he fell
He didn’t realize he was falling?
Will i discover myself in the depths of
Hell singing songs to the wrong
Angel of light?