Banyan Thorns - Language of Leaves

I woke with branches pressing through my skin, Velvet antlers splitting bone and thought, The forest dreaming in my marrow, Teaching me a language older than rot. The owls gave me eyes of hollow light, The stones taught me silence, A fox left its red trail in my lungs, And the moss wrapped my voice in green. Erase me, Unwrite me, Let me be nameless In the language of leaves. The forest has no memory of me, Only the echo of my footsteps Sinking into its ribs. My tongue unravels into roots, Each word I speak takes seed, Choking my throat with sap. I am not man, I am not beast, I am the dream that antlers keep. I am not sky, I am not flame, I am the hunger with no name. Erase me, Unwrite me, Let me be nameless In the language of leaves. My shadow sprouts wings of fern, My eyes are two hollow knots in oak, I am the hunger of deer in winter, The marrow stolen by wolves. The river gnaws my face smooth, The wind carves out my name, I am not man nor beast, But the silence the forest keeps. Bark in my skin, Stone in my bones, Moss in my mouth, The forest owns. Roots uncoil like serpents in my blood, Carrying visions of trees that have yet to grow, I scatter my heart as seeds in the loam, And vanish into the myth I’ve sown. Erase me, Unwrite me, Let me be nameless In the language of leaves.