[HOOK]
Little wolves on the walkway, teeth in the chill night air.
Bark at my shadow like it’s something that was never there.
If they say you’re never like this, I believe that prayer.
’Cause I’m the same — every stranger makes me stand and stare.
Sidewalk saints in a state of Connecticut frost.
Every growl that you give me is the language I lost.
If love got a tone and fear got a different one too.
I’ve been stuck on the same note, same throat, same blue.
***
[VERSE 1]
Darlings, my darklings, leash-light halos on your necks.
Owners swear you’re harmless while you armor up and flex.
I get it — city’s full of pillars, bitter glass and steel.
Tall buildings tilt over us, all teeth, all teeth and heel.
They read my nameplate, make a face, a low complaint.
Soundscape of doubt around me, all that gravel in their throat paint.
Their mutters feel like muzzles, like a muzzle made of sound.
And you answer with an echo, every bark a battleground.
I walk wary, very careful where I place my faith and feet.
Afraid to hold a hand that might not hold my grief as deep.
’Cause when someone stays too long, when they hum inside my chest.
Leaving isn’t just a leaving, it’s a haunted second guess.
There’s a cut between returning and just burying what’s gone.
Planting love like a seed or just erasing it from lawn.
Some dig holes for the holy, hoping roots will rise again.
Some just carve out empty spaces, call that mercy, call it friend.
***
[HOOK]
Little wolves on the walkway, teeth in the chill night air.
Bark at my shadow like it’s something that was never there.
If they say you’re never like this, I believe that prayer.
’Cause I’m the same — every stranger makes me stand and stare.
Sidewalk saints in a state of Connecticut frost.
Every growl that you give me is the language I lost.
If love got a tone and fear got a different one too.
I’ve been stuck on the same note, same throat, same blue.
***
[VERSE 2 — “SUPERIOR BLADE”]
Name’s Superior Blade, bard with the scarred-up heart.
Sharp-tongued troubadour, sword drawn in the darkened park.
I talk to barking bodies, to the gods of paws and claws.
Where you see a frightened animal, I see mirrored human flaws.
I’m not fluent in this feeling, I misplace my pleas and plans.
Try to carve a doorway open in the granite of a man.
Try to beg myself an exit from a chest that shuts too fast.
But the lock is adolescent, and the key is in the past.
Adulthood did me ugly, turned my thunder into dust.
Turned a choir into quiet, turned a promise into rust.
I keep saying that I’m sorry, keep on bowing to the days.
Where I used to be a lantern instead of this ashtray.
You, quick to forget the fingers that were friendly on your fur.
Two minutes and they vanish, all the warmth becomes a blur.
I arrive a ghost of gestures, just a cluster of old light.
Hands that once were open now are constellations in the night.
Listen, puppies of the pavement, there’s a heaven at our height.
We could drag that starry ceiling down and drink the silver light.
Get LaBradford c-| Octavius’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
Fill your bowls until they’re brimming, let the cosmos lick your teeth.
Let the sweetness flood your breathing, let the moon run underneath.
***
[BRIDGE]
There’s a kindness in the chaos when you leap and spin away.
In the streetlamp’s liquid halo, in your wild, unwired play.
I will not plead your presence, won’t chain you to my ache.
Run free through every alley that my memory can’t remake.
***
[HOOK — FINAL]
Little wolves on the walkway, fade in the cold night air.
You forget me in an instant like I was never there.
If they say you’re never like this, I still trust that prayer.
’Cause I’m the one who’s different — always bracing for the stare.
Sidewalk saints in a state of Connecticut frost.
As you vanish down the block, all the barking gets lost.
Let love keep a tone and fear keep a different one too.
Let me drop out the chorus, let the silence sing you.
***
[OUTRO]
So go, my roaming omens, let the moment shake you loose.
I’ll sheathe this Superior Blade, step back from every noose.
Tonight I’m tired of mattering, of tether, of being known.
I’m in the mood for vanishing —
let me walk this world alone.
Sources
[1] image-1.jpg https://ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws.com/web/direct-files/attachments/images/69355819/7242aa63-9d78-44ee-afa8-05c2d230fe56/image-1.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=ASIA2F3EMEYEYCI5GOEX&Signature=Nifk0xFeo%2FVzGHNg%2BgX8vEc2fl8%3D&x-amz-security-token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEM7%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJGMEQCICBAfANtFxE0Ej55gAAbFHjclTvFz32JzTGigdL3wDXcAiBgBXtenvXE2EygykeYUvo3Lkrxt84cj6ReAtvy7bQDbyr8BAiX%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F8BEAEaDDY5OTc1MzMwOTcwNSIMSx5Qenp%2FVztDewXfKtAET2frVy503YeNggURDFytOxgjzWhkn1LNK5eqGCGWn47Nw6sUFLD5cAMBTfRqhUchrgFpm1cKW56Vxn%2BedoGqZj3Ieo2116pVSXG43BAN30BHy0tZIS7IyxiWUwPMld6q0QDppxn5MQkhnCbl%2BZCfpM9ohja4D0rtOnAPyEg4ZcaRWZeH9fRjOu4x7Hqcg8zhIwa1Zb%2BUTKccstqrZD2nDPV2PyBjLVzmLSKGfAL5aqd9wCtg0ghsbCZ4xVqOzoNC4RxWEOzyGyWQlRABqX4RdnUXgkUYj6YwAfPzzFitEuKtKKa3nPNxX7VkaC8eSUH4IX5ka49lO8eMdWVmpKNnY%2B%2Btm1DtNgFV%2FFss5XpvVFIwyshIwVp4eLwawTsk7fhReFNBpM5c5bJU%2FVDmJuPiVATeGhmSQYuei27RSH%2BHHXElSldA0C%2Bp6yvQluDHQvy7DIey%2BVsEc5lAqa1t7rQpcEo%2Fgr1sJgXBsawN3qnQ7E05zUL3HPnsM8bmIZUzDNCHNIZmLumsRjHtaLh%2BbauWm9sSBSxKJQ%2F6lqH%2F%2FP%2B%2FRm2XiMvcHEFc52Nubd8Lznz10sVcobsgyKcEgmWIdWh9BWsJ5937R3sM4Rfeuzp1xVJ0kZTi2t%2BvO4SL0Qzy7fgLiMdSS%2BksJ6%2FGRfXy7BgX2z7oNiPlVjBMH5yXra21qhI%2BrsP0uRtAL2LukhkMUZrxZOhwOM%2BVkmkvkst3OtEvlzDcmyWNLwAfLJIHEVYIZ99tvLs4A0OgC7zubNI9x745HOCJSw5IwBmCNR8XECJP9DCE7ZnNBjqZAbqGKnrJGX6rAAXJNKAnLNIfIqsaV6GhxpM8w%2Femd4wyfRV8DyxlJoZBJuYKRPjQTspa%2FIKqY%2FIZFCqJ1367ZB0zKyH%2FRAvd1ZFX%2B%2FPIgHKdB39EC6gPnUX1kpxOViq%2Bon0IvNGQSyO0x%2FXWp0VTEnspA2xXo17K35VjWo8EBncbvwt1sSA%2FfzEq1bSyD%2BF25dnWjw2t%2FqbmMw%3D%3D&Expires=1772517854
5Lisme — Peace (Final Draft)
I.
Peace.
Not the quiet kind —
the kind that survives the noise,
that holds its ground when the world
won’t stop.
II.
Breathe in.
Let the body speak.
It already knows the way
back to the ground before the war
began.
III.
Two hands.
One open outward,
one pressed flat against the chest —
the whole treaty lives right there in
that space.
IV.
Rivers
never argue with
the rock. They just keep moving,
carving love through what resists them.
So soft.
V.
After
every storm passes,
the field smells like it was new.
That’s not emptiness — that’s the earth
breathing.
Peace is not the absence of war.
It is the practice of return.








