Mirkwood

Mirkwood
Verse 1We cut through the gully they named as a joke and never renamed, back tire sliding on beer caps and dead leaves while the whole town pretends this scar behind the houses is just drainage and not the place where the air goes thin,Street ends drop off into root-twisted slope, graffiti on the concrete walls bleeding down in rain streaks that look a little too much like claws dragging the color toward the mud,Somebody’s old mattress rots by the culvert, springs exposed like ribs, and every time we pass it one of us kicks it just to prove no hand will shoot out and grab a shoelace,Bikes rattle over broken glass and lost toys as the highway hiss fades behind us, and there’s that moment when the sound of the town cuts out, replaced by a low hum that never shows up on any power bill,You crack a joke about trolls under bridges and cursed shortcuts, your laugh catching halfway through when your voice comes back from the tunnel a half step lower, like someone taller borrowed it for a second before handing it back.
Verse 2In daylight it passes for ugly woods, scraggly trunks and beer cans, a shortcut for kids who know every dog on every yard by bark and name,Yet even under sun you can feel the way shadows pile deeper than they should under the overpass, like someone keeps stacking darkness there in spare moments, saving it up for later,The creek thread stutters along the bottom, black water chewing on rusted shopping carts and lost shoes, its surface twitching like muscle every time a breeze that never touches the treetops runs along it,We throw rocks and watch the ripples move wrong, spreading in slow squares instead of circles, folding over themselves like reflections that dislike what they show,Overhead, cars roll across the bridge without a clue, tires whispering over concrete while down here the same echo stretches too long, as if the sound has to drag itself through something thicker than air before it reaches our ears.
Pre-ChorusParents call it a ditch and tell us to stay away after dark,No one says why, they just let the warning hang there like a rope that stops a little short of the drop.
ChorusMirkwood, broken spine behind our quiet streets,Every step along your mud path tastes like dirty electricity and swallowed secrets,We ride through anyway, handlebars trembling, hearts doing the same,If this town has a throat, this is it, and some nights it feels like we are the ones stuck between its teeth.
Verse 3First time you walk it alone after sunset, the sky still holds a smear of orange over the rooftops while down here the light arrives diluted, like it passed through someone else’s hands and picked up their fingerprints,You can hear sprinklers ticking in manicured lawns on both sides, feel clothes dryers vibrating through foundation walls, smell dinner grease hanging in the warm air,All that domestic noise hovers just above your head as you move through this cut, while the dirt under your shoes dreams about swallowing bicycles and cheap sneakers whole,Branches knit over the trail and catch in your hair, snagging like something that doesn’t want you to get to the other end in one clean line,From the culvert mouth a steady breath of cold rolls out, touching your bare arms with fingers that feel like they never learned the difference between pushing and pulling.
Verse 4Kids talk big in the daylight, swear they heard voices in the tunnel, shapes in the brush, something tall between the trees that knows all their middle names,Most of it is bluff and bravado and movie quotes until the afternoon the birds fall quiet along the slope and stay that way for three full minutes,No chirps, no rustle, just the distant hiss of highway and the wet click of water under concrete, the silence pinning our chatter flat like insects in a school display case,You check your watch and the second hand shivers near one number, refuses to cross it, ticking the same millimeter over and over like that sliver of time became a fence,When sound returns it comes in too fast, leaves too bright, our breathing too loud, as if the whole place exhaled us back out after considering something and deciding not yet.
Pre-ChorusWe call it cursed when adults are out of earshot and cursed is safer than right,No one admits that each trip through feels a little like knocking on a door and hoping no one answers.
ChorusMirkwood, broken spine behind our quiet streets,Every step along your mud path tastes like dirty electricity and swallowed secrets,We ride through anyway, handlebars trembling, hearts doing the same,If this town has a throat, this is it, and some nights it feels like we are the ones stuck between its teeth.
BridgeThere are nights when the shortcut grows longer, you swear it, the distance between the two familiar fences stretching like chewed gum while the sky over the bridge stays nailed to the same color,Your headlight beam bends around corners it never used to see, catching glimpses of concrete angles and root webs that don’t match any map you ever drew in the margins of your notebooks,Voices drift down from the neighborhood above, muffled and wrong, syllables spliced backward, laughter slowed to a syrupy drawl that makes your molars ache,You pedal harder, tires slipping in mud that grips like hands, chain grinding, lungs burning on air that tastes like wet pennies and burned wires,Behind you, something big moves just out of peripheral vision, not chasing, not fleeing, only keeping pace, testing how far your fear can stretch without snapping you in half,And when you finally burst out on the other side, back into sprinkler hiss and porch lights and the safe stupid smell of grill smoke, your friends see it in your face and know without asking that the ditch took one more step toward being something else tonight.
ChorusMirkwood, broken spine behind our quiet streets,Every step along your mud path tastes like dirty electricity and swallowed secrets,We ride through anyway, handlebars trembling, hearts doing the same,If this town has a throat, this is it, and some nights it feels like we are the ones stuck between its teeth.
OutroWe keep using you, shortcut carved through roots and runoff, pretending it is just cheaper than the sidewalk,Yet every scar in this place leads back to you in stories whispered over basement tables and late-night phones,One day the town will wonder where its children learned to fear concrete and creek water more than masks and movies,That day they will stand on the bridge and look down, and if the gully looks back up with a smile, no one will be able to say we did not warn them, we already etched the warning into every tire track and footprint pressed into your hungry mud.