The River - Missy Higgins

She ran until her face was numb with cold

And wore a cotton gown that blazed the night untold

She ran until her feet refused to hold

So heavy a heart for someone merely ten years old

And when she reached the river her knees began to shiver

Her head with pounding voices from home

Behind her was a vision, a painful apparition

Of a darker world that no one should know

Somebody’s bed will never be warm again

The river will keep this friend

The somebody’s bed will never be warm again

No, never again

She dived beneath the water’s icy skin

Hoping the cold would kill the smell of angry gin

And her eyes grew wider than they’d ever been

Just wishing the numbness to cut deeper with its pins

And as her body lay there she decided to stay there

Till darkness came to pull her away

And beautifully she sank as up-river was the bank

Where some bodiless troubles would stay