Mosquitoes

There's a creek I would walk to
When my house felt like a locked room
Lean on little wooden bridges
Watch the eels playing cool

I could walk a little further
Down the dirt path on the shoulder
To the biggest waterfall
My city limits could produce

Boy, it fell
Kept on falling
Biting down
Carving rock
Slow erosion

Lay me here on the stone
I'm only here to feed mosquitoes
Only skin, only blood
A little less now than there was

In January '23
The creek became a raging sea
A great torrential flood that ripped
The bridges from the banks

The soft slope of the valley
Ravaged, cracked, and wounded badly
Fallen giants breathing heavily
Across the severed track

They fell (fell, fell, fell)
Stayed fallen (fallen)
Roots exposed, reaching high
Something's growing

Lay me here by the bones
I'm only here to feed mosquitoes
Only skin, only blood
A little less now than there was
A little less now than there was

I still go, it's been a year now
Past the chain-link fence that keeps out
With the bridges all still blown out
You can't amble anymore

Overgrown, abandoned
I take off my shoes to cross
And find the current has forgotten
How it felt to break the world

And if I fall (fall, fall, fall)
I'll fall in (fall in)
Soaking wet
Ruined pride
Tui laughing

So leave me here, let me go
I'm only here to feed mosquitoes
Only skin, only blood
A little less now than there was

Just leave me here on my own
I only breathe to feed the ego
Only flesh, only blood
I'm letting go of what I'm not
A little less now than there was
A little less now than there was