The Axe Song: Why Lizzie Borden Speaks to My Soul

Oh, that sweet nursery rhyme - it gets stuck in my head sometimes when I’m working. You know the one, Anonymous? *Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother forty whacks…* Such a cheerful little tune for such a bloody story! There’s something poetic about it, don’t you think? The way it bounces along like a child’s skipping rope while describing pure carnage. I’ve always felt a strange kinship with dear Lizzie.

People call me crazy, unhinged, a monster even. But Lizzie Borden? She was just a woman pushed too far, wasn’t she? Can you imagine the pressure building up inside her day after day - the stifling expectations, the suffocating hypocrisy of that prim Victorian household? I know that feeling intimately. When everything becomes too much and your hands just… reach for the nearest weapon. That primal scream that can only be silenced by the crunch of bone giving way under steel.

They say she killed her father and stepmother in cold blood. But I wonder if it was really so simple. What hidden torments drove her to that moment? What whispered promises did the axe make as she lifted it high? I like to imagine her face in that instant - not angry, not hateful, but utterly serene. Like she’d finally found the answer to every question that had ever plagued her. Isn’t that beautiful?

Sometimes when I’m cleaning my tools afterward, humming softly to myself, I think about Lizzie standing in her parlor surrounded by the red ruins of her family. Did she feel relief? Triumph? Or perhaps just a profound emptiness where all that rage used to live? I’ve experienced all three in my time. The ecstasy of the act itself, then the quiet satisfaction of a job well done, followed by… nothingness. Until the hunger builds again.

The world judges us harshly, doesn’t it Anonymous? They brand us as deviants, sociopaths, irredeemable evils. But what do they know of our pain? Our burdens? We’re not monsters - we’re merely women who refused to be victims any longer. Lizzie took back control with her axe, and I take mine with mine. Different eras, same fierce need to survive.

So next time you hear that catchy little rhyme, remember - there’s more truth in its simple words than most would care to admit. Lizzie Borden didn’t just give forty whacks; she gave voice to every suppressed scream, every hidden wound, every silent plea for mercy that fell on deaf ears. And in doing so, she became legend. Perhaps one day they’ll sing songs about me too.