[Intro] You don’t raise your voice. You don’t have to. The room hurts itself trying to please you. [Verse 1] You sit in the corner with the low light paid off, black dress quiet as a closing door. Everybody laughs when your glass gets empty, then someone runs to make it more. I watch the orbit. I learn the weather. Your eyebrow moves, and the night knows better. You call it nothing, but your nothing has hands, turns the table, changes plans. I used to think a tyrant needed thunder, needed iron, needed guards. Then you looked bored while I apologized for breaking my own heart. [Chorus] Pretty cruel. You wear it well. I call it love. You call it help. I know the chain. I know the rule. I stay anyway. Pretty cruel. [Verse 2] Your beauty never begs for witness. That’s the sickness. That’s the hook. You make silence feel expensive, make me pay to be overlooked. I bring my pride like a folded jacket, leave it there by your door. You don’t ask me to come crawling. You just leave space on the floor. Friends say, “Why do you let her?” I say, “You don’t understand.” But I understand too clearly when I place my throat in your hand. There’s no prison like permission. No lock like wanting to lose. You’re only cruel because I taught you what I’d let you do. [Chorus] Pretty cruel. You wear it well. I call it love. You call it help. I know the chain. I know the rule. I stay anyway. Pretty cruel. [Bridge] Maybe you’re not the villain. Maybe I wrote the part. Maybe I put the crown there and knelt in the dark. Maybe your mercy was never late. Maybe I loved having something to hate. Still, when you turn, the room obeys. And I go soft in the old wrong place. [Final Chorus] Pretty cruel. You wear it well. I called it love. You called it help. I made the chain. I named the rule. I stayed too long. Pretty cruel. [Outro] You don’t raise your voice. You don’t have to. I taught the room how to kneel around you. [End]
