Would You Choose Fourteen

Verse 1

Late at night with wine in mismatched cups,
I ask the girls a question to stir us up:
If the wheel turns round and you start again,
Would you come back as women, or come back as men?
They laugh at first, then settle in their chairs,
Spinning hypothetical threads into the air.
Every hand goes up for the life we know,
"A woman," they say, in the soft room's glow.

Pre-Chorus

Then I turn the dial, I change the game,
Remove the safety net, remove the frame.
What if it’s any soil, what if it’s any era?
When the lens gets wider and the truth gets clearer?

Chorus

Would you choose fourteen-hundred? Would you choose the dust?
A Black girl in the heat with a life built on must?
Or do we only want the bloom when the climate is fine?
Right here, right now, in modern time?
It’s a quiet confession, a sting in the chest,
We love who we are, but we pray for the best.

Verse 2

I fought so hard just to walk in these shoes,
To claim my own name, to have something to lose.
So when I look inward and answer my poll,
I feel the small guilt settling into my soul.
I want the grace without all of the pain,
I want the sunshine, but none of the rain.
We pick the easy harvest from the historical tree,
And wonder what that says about you and me.

Pre-Chorus

When I turn the dial, when I change the game,
And see all the sisters who bore the flame.
Across every century, holding the line,
Without the soft safety of yours and mine.

Chorus

Bridge

Maybe it’s not cruelty, maybe it’s just grace...
To want a little comfort in a difficult place.
When you spent half a lifetime just reaching your skin,
You don't ask for a battle you might not win.
It’s human to want the light on your face...
It’s human to look for a gentle space.

Chorus

Outro

Just a late-night question...
Over mismatched wine...
Wishing peace on every sister...
Through all of time.

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