God Was On Your Shoulders

You were twenty-one years old on the day that I was born.
A child in a child’s arms in a snow storm.
Your father left you like his failed church,
So you married a man who said he’d hold you in.

You thought God was on his shoulders.
God was on his shoulders.
God was on his shoulders
And he would do right.

It took a month to find out he was mean,
But he said that he would kill you if you ever tried to leave.
So you had five children and stayed for sixteen years.
And we learned to hide ourselves when he was in the house.

He thought God was on his shoulders.
God was on his shoulders.
God was on his shoulders
And he could do no wrong.

When you lost a child it must have been like hell.
You probably wished that you could leave yourself,
But there were four more reasons to wake up everyday
And you were silent like the suburbs in your pain.

And God was on your shoulders.
God was on your shoulders.
God was on your shoulders
And that’s who you talked to.

When you finally left my father I thought that we were free.
But then again there was the devil inside of me.
So I live without a mother rather than in the church
But I had my way I wouldn’t have to choose.

Oh god. Oh god.