My IQ Ani DiFranco

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.

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