Intimate-to-rising chamber musical solo that begins almost a cappella with fragile lyric soprano over a soft sustained cello drone and distant harmonium pad, tempo slow and suspended around 52–56 bpm, vocal delivery breath-driven and exposed with minimal vibrato, emotional tone vulnerable and confused at first, then gradually building as low piano or muted strings enter and a subtle heartbeat pulse develops underneath; harmonies darkening from gentle minor to more dissonant suspended chords as anger emerges, dynamics swelling into a full, emotionally charged belt supported by layered strings and restrained cinematic percussion (deep low drum hits used sparingly for emphasis), melodic lines expanding in range as strength grows, climax powerful but controlled rather than theatrical, ending in a stripped-back final phrase with instrumentation falling away to near silence, leaving the voice alone and raw.
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Lyrics
(WOMAN)
Where is my baby?
(male doctor)
It was never your baby.
That would be a bastard.
The child has already found
A suitable family.
(woman)
But I didn’t get to hold her.
(Doctor)
Stop your crying.
How dare you assume to cry
When this is all your doing.
(WOMAN)
But I didn’t know.
No one ever told me.
(Music shifts into the song proper.)
WOMAN
I was never taught
What a body means.
Never shown the map
Between the in-betweens.
No one named the hunger.
No one named the cost.
They only named the girl
As ruined.
As lost.
I was never told
What the rules would be.
Never given language
To protect me.
They said be quiet.
They said be good.
They said keep your knees
Where virtue should.
I was never taught
What yes could be.
What no could mean
Inside of me.
I thought love was gentle.
I thought trust was kind.
I thought when hands were steady
They were not designed
To leave me holding
Shame alone.
To leave me carrying
What I had never known.
(Music begins to grow — low pulse enters.)
I imagined her
With my mother’s eyes—
No, softer.
Kinder.
Without disguise.
I would have told her
Every name
For every part
Without the shame.
I would have taught her
How to stand
Without folding
At a man’s command.
I would have told her
Her body was hers.
Not a lesson.
Not a blur.
I would have held her
Through the night.
Said hunger is not
Always right.
Said love does not
Demand your fear.
Said no one holy
Hides in here.
(Pulse intensifies. Anger rises.)
You say she’s better
Far from me.
You say I was unfit
To be
The mother of
A child so small.
But I was never taught
At all.
You built the silence.
You locked the door.
You called me sinner
Before
I knew the word.
Before the act.
Before my body
Learned the fact
That ignorance
Can still conceive
And girls who trust
Are made to grieve.
(Music swells — full voice now.)
I was never taught
But I would have learned.
I would have listened.
I would have turned
Toward her cry
And held it close.
Not let her grow
In borrowed clothes.
You took my daughter
Without my name.
You called it mercy.
You called it shame.
But I was never taught—
And that is yours.
You built these walls.
You made these doors.
If I am guilty
It is of trust.
If I am broken
It is because
I was never taught
How to be free.
So do not dare
To bury her
From me.
(Quiet final line.)
I would have held her.
