Turn Soonest to the Sea
Protest the Hero Lyrics

Do you remember how it was when you bled?
Do you recall the intense emotional pain and suffering you experienced?

When you loved and burned in those flames that you've kept
During the passionate moments of love, you felt intense pain that still haunts you.

Because Vesta's long been sleeping
Because the goddess of domesticity and home no longer looks over us.

And now you've come to accept that your anatomy defines more than a few of the gaping holes in our social fabric and it defines more than a few one night stands, more than a few prison bars melted in, melted in, melted into wedding bands
You have realized that societal expectations and gender roles have limited and defined you in ways that impact your relationships and your freedom.

We've made you all the peasants and we've made ourselves the kings
Society has put you at a disadvantage, while giving us power and privilege.

Our queens are still subordinate as an angel without wings
Despite the progress we've made, women are still marginalized and treated as inferior.

We make it easy to belong which means it's easy to be wrong
We pressure people to conform and this encourages people to behave against their own values and morals.

"Put some plastic in your tits, and you'd look better as a blonde"
We judge women based on their appearance and criticize them for not looking a certain way.

I remember when you were hopeful and you never thought your life would be lived inside a coffin with a moral sacrifice and a million social obligations, labels and expectations when you were young and modern seventeen in vogue and vague pursuit of a cosmopolitan dream
You once had dreams and ambitions, but society has limited you and forced you into a life of moral sacrifice and social obligations.

So when you bled on the bed as you fed those expectations as a whore and not a human, you embraced with hesitation the very parameters of all you can be
You have been forced to accept society's expectations and limitations, even when it goes against your own values and self-worth.

Not a mother, not an aunt, not a sister who's not subdued
Women are only valued in terms of their relationships to men, and are only seen as valuable when they are submissive and compliant.

Because dignity's not physical and your flesh means more than you, your flesh means more than you; your flesh means more than you;
Your worth as a human being is not determined by your physical appearance and societal expectations, but rather your inherent value as a person.

I know we'll wake up one day with a gun to the back of our brains, You'll be asking for your rib and I'll smile and call you brave
One day, we will be forced to confront the harmful gender roles and expectations that have been imposed on us, and it will take courage to challenge them.

Maybe someday when - when this bloody skull has dried I'll know our city is in ruins when the greatest source of pride is a monument of dicks and ribs and gender crowns we wore
The societal norms and expectations we cling to now will ultimately lead to our downfall and destruction, as represented by the monument of gendered body parts.

Where underneath, a plaque will read, A plaque will read: "No woman is a whore"
In a future where we have rejected harmful gender roles and expectations, women will no longer be devalued and objectified as sexual objects.