Ani Difranco - My I.Q. lyrics

when I was four years old

they tried to test my I.Q.

they showed me a picture

of 3 oranges and a pear

they said,

which one is different?

it does not belong

they taught me different is wrong

but when I was 13 years old

I woke up one morning

thighs covered in blood

like a war

like a warning

that I live in a breakable takeable body

an ever-increasingly valuable body

that a woman had come in the night to replace me

deface me

see,

my body is borrowed

yeah, I got it on loan

for the time in between my mom and some maggots

I don't need anyone to hold me

I can hold my own

I got highways for stretchmarks

see where I've grown

I sing sometimes

like my life is at stake

'cause you're only as loud

as the noises you make

I'm learning to laugh as hard

as I can listen

'cause silence

is violence

in women and poor people

if more people were screaming then I could relax

but a good brain ain't diddley

if you don't have the facts

we live in a breakable takeable world

an ever available possible world

and we can make music

like we can make do

genius is in a back beat

backseat to nothing if you're dancing

especially something stupid

like I.Q.

for every lie I unlearn

I learn something new

I sing sometimes for the war that I fight

'cause every tool is a weapon -

if you hold it right.