DECLAWED

You wake up
Feel the manacles on your wrists
     (we just want to help you)
You shake your head
Clear the fog, hands balled into fists
     (we need to protect you)
Lash out!
Looks like someone took your weapons away
     (we had to declaw you)
You get up
Disarmed, to stagger through another day
     (so now we can keep you)

Where are the bastards
Where are the bastards
Show your faces and
I'll show you who's master...

Free at heart, but if I keep my
Free nose to the grindstone, I can
Pay to stay alive, and I'll be
Free at five, so if you're
Free why don't we meet, 'cause I can
Pay enough for both of us to
Free our minds together, it's a
Free country, you know your will is
Free, yeah, the first one's always
Free...
                   ...and I'm a
Slave to all my instincts, but that
Slavery, yeah, it stinks, so I
Master my reactions and I
Slave away; inaction makes a
Slave of me under another
Master, break away and I'm a
Slave to freedom, a
Slave to what my conscience says is
Mastery, but just another
Slave.

I think I've overcome the urge
To stalk and hunt what I deserve,
My masters tell me that they need me,
But their words will never feed me,
So I let my instincts lead me
Down a road to desolation,
Cashing in each new sensation,
Selling hope for cheap elation,

and there's 
No time to search for something better,
No time to know, to will, to dare, to be,
No time to laugh and dance and cry and sing,
No time to face the dark or seek the light,
No time and no way and no chance and
No where and no one...

And they pick me up and put me in a cage,
I fly into a rage,
There's nothing I can do,
Nothing I can do,
Nothing I can do,
Nothing...

'Cause now I've been declawed.

(You limp on home
 When the day is done,
 Chain your head to the pillow,
 And think about the race you've run,
 Lick clean the holes in your bloody paws
 Where you tore out your own razor claws
 One by one,
 To be nice and play tame
 For the master's son.

 What did you gain
 From the shame and the pain,
 Just a collar and chain,
 Now how does it feel to be tame?

 Goodnight kitty.

 Tomorrow we'll fix you.)

-skyler 1995-96