Pocket Your Tears

Baby girl, she's just thirteen,

Still naive, life serene.

But something's wrong, she doesn't know,

Cannot say...cannot say...

A body pained, no reason why.

And still she smiles, time passes by.

Chin up now, pocket your tears.

Your mind is hungry, your muscles are sore.

Maybe fourteen is hiding

the end to your story...

Chin up now, pocket your tears.

But fourteen, and it's getting worse

The hurt, the hurt seeps into all.

Doctors frown, hide a tear.

Distract, control, don't show your fear.

Should've felt... should've seen...

Doesn't know when whispers began:

"I'll make you strong...I'll make you strong..."

"This broken body, you're better than that."

Fifteen, fighting for control.

This is her gospel, she'll pay the toll.

Chin up now, pocket your tears.

Your body is hungry, your muscles are sore.

Maybe sixteen is hiding

the end to your story.

Chin up now, pocket your tears.

Sixteen she wakes from groggy sleep.

A bar code scanned, needle in her arm.

A diagnosis and a price so steep.

Forever debt... it's never met...

Moves out and heeds the sergeant's bark.

The night is drugged, the daytime's dark.

Chin up now, pocket your tears.

Your soul is hungry, your muscles are sore.

Maybe seventeen is hiding

the end to your story.

Chin up now, pocket your tears.

Seventeen she drinks, she starves, shes sold.

Eighteen in his arms, but still she's cold.

Nineteen desperate to fight her way free.

Stumbling blind... stumbling blind...

A call for help, an unquiet mind.

She's twenty now, and one year softer.

Sweet with a core as hard as stone,

A heart of bone... A heart of bone.

But yet twenty is, it seems, still far too young?

Maybe when she's twenty one...