Snakebit - Mary Gauthier

The children are crying, they never got their supper

Where would you run to, in the darkness of the night?

Even shadows fear to wander

They gather round me in the candlelight

Your crucifix is broken, bloody, sharp and shattered

I smashed it to pieces on the bedroom floor

Pain and prayers and promises scattered

Then I pulled the pistol from the dresser drawer

Oh Lord, oh Lord

Oh Lord, what have I done?

Everything worth holding slips through my fingers

Now my hands wrapped around the handle of a gun

The further I fall the less I falter

Forsaken, forgotten, without love

A slow motion whisper turns into a holler

Forty years of push turns into a shove

Oh Lord, oh Lord

Oh Lord, what have I done?

Everything worth holding just slips through my fingers

Now my hands wrapped around the handle of a gun

The chair that I sit in belonged to my daddy

Carved from the hard wood of a bitter tree

When he was alive he used tell me, kid

I knew when you were born you’d end up snakebit like me

Oh Lord, oh Lord

Oh Lord, what have I done?

Everything worth holding slips through my fingers

Now my hands wrapped around the handle of a gun

I’m holding on to the handle of a gun