Lyrics

There was a summer I was thirteen, running barefoot through the rain
My body was a country I inhabited without a map or explanation
I stretched, I climbed, I felt the heat collect behind my knees
And nobody had told me yet that any of this was not for me

Then came the curriculum of cover up and cross your legs
The whispered list of what a girl should want but never beg
They drew a line between my heart and everything below
And called one half divine and one half something I should never show

But I remember what I was before the lessons came
A body undivided, a desire without a name

Before they taught me shame
I was holy head to toe
Before they taught me shame
My skin already knew where love could go
They split me into halves - the saint above, the sinner underneath
But I am welding myself whole again
And I am done, I am done, I am done with their belief

The boys were taught that hunger makes them men
The girls were taught that hunger makes them fallen
So we performed our wanting in the dark
And no one ever taught us how to call it what it was: just nature calling

Who benefits from bodies filled with doubt?
Who profits when we don't know what we're about?

Before they taught me shame
I was holy head to toe
Before they taught me shame
My skin already knew where love could go
They split me into halves - the saint above, the sinner underneath
But I am welding myself whole again
And I am done, I am done, I am done with their belief

I'm not undressing for rebellion
I'm not performing for a crowd
I'm standing in my own sensation
And I am saying it out loud:
The spine is not a border wall
The belly is not a disgrace
And pleasure is not the opposite of God -
Pleasure is how the body learns to pray

Before they taught me shame
There was nothing here to fix
Before they taught me shame
The sacred and the sensual could mix
I'm taking back the teenage girl who folded up and hid
I'm handing her the whole of her
And telling her: you never, ever, ever did a thing that wasn't beautiful, kid

No shame, no shame
This body is not a confession
This body is not a crime
This body was always, always mine