1. GORGEOUS – Lyrics

“Gorgeous is what rose when my body bent.
It’s the part of me that never got asked consent.”

(Scroll down for lyrics)

Gorgeous is the first room I had to walk back into.

This is a memory my body never filed correctly — the one my mind tried to shrink into something “small” so I could keep living. It didn’t feel dramatic at the time. It felt foggy, slow, blurry, like my senses were wrapped in cotton. Freeze arrives quiet like that. It isn’t cinematic. It’s numb and impolite and confusing.

I didn’t go upstairs because I wanted him.
I went because I had been raised to be agreeable.
to be mature.
to be nice.
to smooth men’s feelings.
to not make a scene.

That training lives in your throat. It lives in your hands.
It tells you to smile when you’re scared.

I said yes because my body was scared to say no.

Nobody told me that “yes” can be a survival reflex.
Nobody told me freeze can swallow your voice whole.
Nobody told me danger can make you polite.

I didn’t understand any of that back then.

What I do remember:

the foam on the drink
the metronome of the ceiling fan
the moment my body stopped listening to me
the blue fog around my vision
the way he walked away like nothing happened
the way I raced home, dripping, shaking, late for curfew

And underneath all of that — the truth I didn’t have words for yet:

There was something in that drink.

The burn in my throat wasn’t alcohol.
I had never drank before, so I didn’t know that.
The dizziness wasn’t “she can’t handle it.”
The numbness wasn’t consent.
My body shutting down wasn’t shyness.

I know that now.
I didn’t know it then.

And then came the silence.

The adults asked the wrong questions:
“Why’d she go?”
“Why’d she drink?”
“Why’d she get in the truck?”
No one asked why he felt entitled to a body that wasn’t offering.

I cleaned myself up alone.
I hid the evidence alone.
I carried the shame alone.

The world called me “gorgeous” while I was terrfied of what that meant.

And that word — gorgeous — became a costume I wore so nobody saw the shaking underneath.

For years after, I disappeared in small ways:

shrinking my voice
shrinking my needs
shrinking my presence
shrinking my reflection

I kept trying to become the version of me the world rewards — agreeable, beautiful, quiet, easy.
The girl who never makes anyone uncomfortable, yet I was triggered all the time and my body ached from hyper-vigilance.

Gorgeous became the mask I used to survive.

This song is where I finally peeled it off.
It’s where I stop blaming the girl who froze.
It’s where I stop apologizing for her.
It’s where I go back for her and bring her with me into the mirror.

Because the truth is:

Gorgeous isn’t a compliment. It’s how I learn to love my own reflection.

Not the surface reflection — the deeper one.
The one that remembers every silence.
Everything I blamed myself for.
Everything I swallowed to keep the peace.
Everything I wasn’t allowed to say.

Writing this song was the first time I let her speak.

🌑 THE DRUG LAYER — THE THING I COULDN’T NAME YET

I didn’t have the language then, but now I do:

I was drugged.

That’s why the room warped.
That’s why my limbs felt underwater.
That’s why the “yes” fell out of my mouth like a dead thing.
That’s why my body wouldn’t stand when he told me to bend.
That’s why my vision blurred blue at the edges.

At the time, I didn’t even consider it.
I thought I was naive.
I thought I drank too fast.
I thought I “should’ve known better.”

Survivors almost always rewrite danger into self-blame.

But what happened in that room aligned exactly with drink tampering signs I wouldn’t learn about until much later.

Which leads to the next layer — the one that cracked everything open.

🌒 THE NAMING LAYER — WHEN I FINALLY REALIZED WHAT IT WAS

It took me over a year to understand what happened had a name.

I didn’t walk out of that room thinking “I was raped.”
I walked out thinking:

I shouldn’t have gone upstairs.
I shouldn’t have had the drink.
I shouldn’t have trusted him.
I should’ve known better.
I should’ve been smarter.

That’s what freeze does.
It hides the truth under shame.

I didn’t recognize it until I was required — ironically — to take a sexual assault class in the military.
They listed situations exactly like mine.

Every bullet point matched my body.
Every example was my memory.
Every definition held the shape of that night.

I didn’t feel enlightened. I felt sick.

I ran out of the classroom crying because it was the first time anyone had ever said out loud:

“What happened to you wasn’t your fault.”
“What happened to you has a name.”
“What happened to you was sexual assault.”

My body knew long before my mind did.
Naming it didn’t feel empowering — it felt like collapse.
It was the truth finally catching up to me.

And that truth lives inside this song.

🌒 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM LAYER — FREEZE / FAWN

After that, I used to think I “let it happen.”
I didn’t know freeze is an automatic survival response.

Trauma research says:

• 70% of survivors freeze during sexual assault

• many lose speech

• many dissociate

• many stay polite because fawn kicks in

• the body prioritizes survival, not resistance

My compliance that night wasn’t desire.
It was the emergency brake that kept me alive.

Understanding that softened everything inside me.

🌑 THE CULTURE LAYER — THE SCRIPT I WAS RAISED INSIDE

I was raised inside the kind of script that trains girls to disappear:

be nice
be sweet
be small
don’t upset boys
don’t embarrass anyone
don’t be dramatic
don’t trust your instincts
don’t make a scene

So of course I froze.
Of course I stayed quiet.
Of course I blamed myself.

GORGEOUS is where I unlearn that script.

🌘 THE MIRROR LAYER — THE REAL STORY OF THIS SONG

After that night, the mirror became the scariest witness in my life.

Every time I met my own eyes, I saw guilt that wasn’t mine.

Gorgeous is the moment years later when I faced that reflection.
It’s where I whispered:

“I see you.”
“I believe you.”
“You survived everything.”
“I love you”

This song is the first crack in the old mirror.
The rest of the album expands from here.

🌑 THE SHAME LAYER — WHAT FOLLOWED

Shame didn’t show up like guilt.
It showed up like:

eating disorders
panic attacks / PTSD
body hatred
oversexualizing to feel in control
being “quiet” when I wanted to scream
chronic illnesses
body dysmorphia
severe depression and desire not to live

🌒 THE ALBUM LAYER — WHY THIS SONG MATTERS

This is a root wound of the album.
It explains every room that comes after:

the marriages
the dissociation
the abuse
the self-blame
the trauma
the PTSD
my feminine awakening

GORGEOUS opens the door to the entire story.

It’s where the girl I was broke.
And where the woman I became began.

🌙 GENTLE RESEARCH NOTES

(some things I found that helped me understand myself better)

1 in 3 women experience sexual violence.
Freeze is the most common response.

Freeze is not passivity — it’s protection.
Fawn is not consent — it’s survival.

Women raised to be pleasing are more likely to freeze.
Women raised in shame-based homes are more likely to dissociate.
Women raised to avoid conflict often go silent in danger.

Understanding this helped me stop blaming myself for what my nervous system did to keep me alive.

🖤 CROW BLESSING

May the girl you were feel you turning toward her.
May your voice return to your throat gently.
May your reflection meet you with recognition, not judgment.
You survived.
You’re here.
Crow’s on the wire — steady, remembering.

🖋 LYRICS — GORGEOUS

(full lyrics exactly as you wrote them)

[intro:]
"Why’d she get in the truck?"
"I mean, she said yes to the drink…"
"Why’d she go upstairs then?"
"Hope she Don’t ruin his future."

[Verse 1]
I say yes to the drink to seem mature.
calm palms on the sink—he’s done this before
I watch his back, he’s got my glass and somethin’ between
Didn’t know that the foam on top wasn’t clean.
It burns like soap, like plastic in my throat,
He says, “Drink more,” so I swallow the choke
Now the bottle’s half gone—I let it fall on the floor
My vision blurry, my body a metaphor
On his knees, wipes it up, says “Go to the bed”
My goosebumps hurt, I quiet my shaking breath
He says, ‘Bend over’ — I wanna stand, body wont.
Chain on the ceiling fan keeps the metronome
It’s over fast—he walks off like a ghost.
I’m not a virgin now. It drips to my toes.
Dizzy and turned blue, I race to the gate
He said he’d get me back by curfew, but I was late

[Hook]
Gorgeous isn’t a compliment.
It’s how I reclaim my innocence.
Gorgeous is what rose when my body bent.
It’s the part of me that never got asked consent.
Gorgeous is The first lie I swallowed, the mask in the cup
Its the years I felt like trash in the dump
Gorgeous is my resurrection.
It’s the way I learn to love my own reflection

[Verse]
I bleed alone and learn to scrub the stain.
They say, “You don’t even know pain.”
They say, “Be sweet, be nice, others have it worse.”
So I stay still and swallow the curse.
I am bulimia inside their filtered dream.
I am a migraine locked in a caged-jaw scream.
Gorgeous means a waist and a porn-star pout.
A silent reward he can choke or shout.
I play the doll they dress in silence pink.
They call it love when I start to shrink.
I carve my name inside the culture’s grin.
And smile with teeth—I never let them win.

[Hook]
Gorgeous isn’t a compliment.
It’s how I reclaim my innocence.
Gorgeous is what rose when my body bent.
It’s the part of me that never got asked consent.
Gorgeous is The first lie I swallowed, the mask in the cup
Its the years I felt like trash in the dump
Gorgeous is my resurrection.
It’s the way I learn to love my own reflection

[Bridge]
It wasnt the first, it wasnt the last
Different men, who didnt ask
I learned to go limp,
Too scared to see what they’d do if i didn’t
I learned to answer the door with a knife
Too scared to see what they’d do if I didn’t
I learned to say yes before they’d take,
Too scared to see what they’d do if I didn’t.

[Final Hook]
Gorgeous isn’t a compliment.
It’s how I reclaim my innocence.
Gorgeous is what rose when my body bent.
It’s the part of me that never got asked consent.
Gorgeous is the lie they dressed in trust.
It’s the scream I stitched from rust.
Gorgeous is my resurrection.
It’s the way I learn to love my own reflection.

[Outro]
Still gorgeous.
Even after all of it.