The Girl Without Hands

Lyrics

[Intro]
(candlelit cello and harp, a dirge with a thread of mercy)

[Verse 1]
The Devil came to a lazy mill and struck a lazy deal —
"what stands behind your grindstone's mine" — and it was me, kneeling and real.
My father raised the axe to save his soul at the cost of my hands,
and I walked into the winter world with two clean-bandaged brands.

[Chorus]
No hands, no home, but a moon on the pear tree, low and kind —
the body loses, and the body learns; the wound rewrites the mind.
Grief lays down new roads inside you where the old ones came apart —
and a girl with nothing left to hold learns to carry with her heart.

[Verse 2]
A king came walking his silver orchard and found me eating there,
built me a pair of silver hands and a crown to match my hair.
The Devil forged his lies between us, but a good king held the line —
and I raised a child in the wild alone till the shadow lost its claim on mine.

[Bridge]
(warm, rising)
Seven years in the forest of God and the hands grew back like spring —
what love keeps calling wanted and whole, the flesh remembers to bring.

[Outro]
Ten new fingers in the pear-tree light and the deal undone at last...
some healing is just being wanted enough to outgrow the past.