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