What I Was Afraid Of · Track 18 · middle
Tomahawk
Tomahawk — Native American and modern military axe. Register: ancient. This song is sung BY this weapon, in first person, about the one thing IT was afraid of. Find the fear that is true of this specific object, not a generic one.
No audio yet — generation pending.
Lyrics
The canvas is gone. The leather is gone. I am strapped to a chest of ceramic plates Swinging against a synthetic weave They gave me a handle of textured glass And a matte black coat so I don't deceive I used to smell like the smoke of the hearth Like sweat and hickory, river and rust Now I am machined out of modern steel Riding in a cabin smelling of dust This is what I am afraid of: Not the bone, not the splintering door But that they kept my shape and erased my fathers Just to dress up a sterile war I am a ghost forced into a plastic shell Given to a boy who doesn't know the trees A heavy head waiting for the wrist to snap A captive god on a stranger's knees Fourteen and a quarter inches from pommel to eye You don't even have to think when you reach for my grip The map of your forearm just lengthens the line I become the iron at the end of the whip I know the math of rotation in the air A pound and a half of silence in the dark But when I bite into the frame of the wood I leave a completely hollow mark I was the winter firewood I was the shelter in the freeze Now I am only the breach, only the entry Carried by men who cross the seas To play at being wild They bought me to feel wild This is what I am afraid of: Not the bone, not the splintering door But that they kept my shape and erased my fathers Just to dress up a sterile war I am a ghost forced into a plastic shell Given to a boy who doesn't know the trees A heavy head waiting for the wrist to snap A captive god on a stranger's knees So I hang from the webbing Waiting for the rotor blades to slow I remember the ash wood I remember the trade iron I don't know this hand I just don't know