Deer Friends from Analomink by Catthumbs

I was gonna phase out of here like smoke
Annalomink walked with me to the overpass,
Back where we used to build castles and smoke cigarettes,
With her land legs all skinny and sharp hooves
My deer friend,
Gave me our memories in the form of a seed
Told me even now the drillmen's carvings itch in her back like flea bites
She said, bring it somewhere with ears
And strong feet
You,
Metallic riddleteeth, megaphone guts, candy wrapper cattlespur blooddrive
You made the same mistake every fucking one of us made
But you didn't have breaks
We were just walking
You were a blur of headlights and crash and splintered moonlight
I couldn't tell my broken glasses from your broken windshield
From her broken glass body on the road like just another casualty of Pennsylvania highways
You were a metal cannibal and I was something you saw as small enough to swallow
Thought I was nothin' but a jittery yip of a howl
With your hands around my wrists you tried to drag me into the passenger seat
I was broken glasses broken windshield broken antlers broken levee broken eggshell I broke free
Scratched your hands with my claws and flew to the center of town with that acorn in my beak
Dug into the ground in front of the courthouse and planted it as the last action of my silent fox's feet
Then climbed up onto the statue's pedestal on two legs
Bare skin and scraped knees
As that story started growing
I was tired of whispering
I screamed
Y'all are waking up to this tree
Busting up through your sidewalks
Perforating your brickwork
When you find yourself blinking in your crumbling houses high up in the branches
With light flooding in across the leaves
They'll be humming with secrets you didn't wanna talk about
And everything will be green
And honest
And wonderful
And I'll be out west
Cuttin' my teeth
I'm not sorry

• Chapel Hill
• Spoken Word
• folk punk
• poetry
• spokenfolk
• Providence