Cheri Knight

North East Kingdom.

In these houses of stark white
We'd have you think that nothing ever happens
Lead us not that we should go astray
Forever fall from grace

In these houses of stark white
All our sins are nailed beneath clavatesAnd all our secrets are swinging from the rafters
Through an open window I am going away
I sit down, down, down where they make me
And I eat every thing I am told
On the plate before me I see my own skin and bone
Overhead the sky is black with carrion crows
Every lesson is one course driven deep into the ground
Every prayer another wire wound 
Around the very thing they desire

I slip out every night through a crack in the book
I lay myself down beside him
They like to call what I have done by any other name
So when morning comes I hide his love away
There's a moon and a wind on the water
And his fingers tug my robe
I might take off running, oh! but he knows that I will stay
My hands pass gently over him tear the nails away
Singing shine a light to see you by
Lay me down on the corn and the rye
Bend and kiss my face again
Lay me down in the river, the river of sin.

In these houses of stark white
I will live and I will walk upright
And the sun will blaze upon the day
When their aching bones are settled in the clay
I run down, down, down I have laid there
And I have put them in their shame
No one among them will ever find me
On the days of reckoning

I'll be singing
Shine a light to see you by
Lay me down in the corn and the rye
Bend and kiss my face again
Lay me down in the river.