Politeness Like Poison

[Verse 1] I learned to say “yes ma’am” like a prayer, Fold my laundry neat and square. But inside a wild bird beats against the cage, Counting cracks in this small-town stage. [Pre-Chorus] Politeness like poison, sweet and slow, I wear their smiles but I’m ready to go. [Chorus] I’m torn between the porch light and the midnight road, Between the calm and the chaos, the safe and the unknown. Freedom tastes like fire, but it burns a hole in me, I’m craving the wild, but I’m scared to leave. [Verse 2] Sunday dinners filled with silent pain, Whispers masked in sweet peach stain. Family ghosts in the magnolia’s shade, Their love’s a bruise that never fades. [Pre-Chorus] I learned to bend but not to break, Now I’m chasing the risk I’m scared to take. [Chorus] I’m torn between the porch light and the midnight road, Between the calm and the chaos, the safe and the unknown. Freedom tastes like fire, but it burns a hole in me, I’m craving the wild, but I’m scared to leave. [Bridge] The box feels like home, but it’s a cage dressed in lace, And every polite word is a line I erase. I want to run screaming through the pines and the night, But the roots hold me tight, wrapped in Southern quiet. [Outro] No neat ending, no sweet goodbye, Just the ache of wanting to live and not just survive. Freedom’s a ghost on a backroad breeze— Calling me closer, breaking me free.