PART ONE:

BONE

I.

There’s a monster that sleeps under my skin

Stirring only at my mother’s voice

II.

I was made

Not born

An incantation gone wrong

My mother spends every breath

Trying to fix me

III.

My mother brought me to life in the fall

When maple trees were the colour of blood

I see monsters in every shadow

(Even my own)

The world outside looks wicked

Through the eyes my mother gave me

---

I.

There’s a monster that weeps under my skin

Mourning for things my mother cannot give

II.

The demons tell me I must choose

Be a blessing or a curse

I ask my mother if I can be neither

(If I can be both)

She laughs in my face

With both of hers

I cut you from my flesh

I gave you life

And this is how you repay me

III.

On my bedroom ceiling

I stick stars

And dream of space

My mother rips them down

One by one

And inserts them under my skin

When the lights go out

I glow in the dark

You are full of bad ideas

---

I.

My mother is the full moon

That turns me

Savage

II.

When it rains

It storms

All I want is reprieve

From howling at a monsoon

III.

When wolves tear me open

Swallowing my organs whole

My mother asks

Why I let them in

---

I.

Bury my body in the forest

I would rather your tears water my grave

Than live the rest of my life

Mourning yours

II.a.

I see wolves

Hiding in

The skin of men

II.b.

There are birds in the trees

That watch me sleep

Waiting for fresh flesh to eat

III.

My mother made me from sticks and stone

She learnt long ago

The outside world holds no softness

For creatures like us

---

(INTERMISSION)

I.

It will take you half a life to learn

Even the crowns of trees

Can be afraid to touch

II.

You are a sapling

As your mother was once

She planted you on the same earth

In a different time

This rain will taste different

In your new veins

III.

Flowers don't need other flowers to grow

And there are answers your mother

Will never know

---

PART TWO:

BROTH

I.

There are ghosts I carry for years at a time

I’m not sure where we’re going

But I trust them to leave when we arrive

II.

Home is a state of being

And I am prone to wandering

III.

When you’ve been gone for a lifetime

Your past life will feel like someone else’s

But your mother —

No matter how the world changes

— will stay the same

---

I.

My mother leaves her door open

All the better to hear me scream

She stirs

And touches

Her hand to my cheek

A leoi

It’s just a bad dream

This night

This life

Go back to sleep

II.

When I’m sick my mother makes herbal soup

I swallow her magic down

It passes through me like water

III.

Take your potion

Take your potion

Keep the spiders out of your head

---

I.

My mother’s father was a monster

Who took more than

My mother could give

II.

My mother’s mother was no witch

Sometimes I wonder

If that’s why

My mother is

III.

(What does that make me?)

---

I.

When I was young my mother warned me

Leave the bones in the dirt

They are not your playthings

II.

Old friends are just ghosts

Use the board to board your doors

Don’t let them in

Don’t let them in

III.

When you walk the earth with a head full of whispers

The silence at the end of the world

Sounds like screaming

(But relief can be found in the rhythm of chaos)

---

I.

There’s a monster in my veins

That tears at my mother’s throat

She grows a new one in the night

And kisses my crown when I wake

The sunlight erases the dark

And illuminates

Phantom marks

Stretched across my mother’s neck

In frightening clarity

II.

I’m afraid one day I’ll peel back my skin

And find nothing beneath

Just flesh and bone

III.

My mother’s demons are too heavy for her to hold

So I carry them for her

Heirlooms

Keepsakes