Between His Black Teeth

There is a wheel that spins to keep the river flowing
It runs a course between your eyelids and your aching jaw
There was a bird that took your voice and turned it backward
He and the past were aiming arrows at your heaving chest
You took a train into the mouth of all you hated
Spent half-an-hour watching hope pass through a window
You've got that singing crown of thorns around your thick head
You and the kid that you once were are fighting over it
Then collected rocks, filled up my pockets and tried to cross the stream
(ran down the river Van, to the mouth of old Fenrir)
I was told I'd be kept afloat by the ghosts f the hills that I'd flattened to get here
(and he swallowed us up, swallowed us up)
Trusted a fiend and lost my hand, my blood flowed white and filled the canyon
(ran down to the river Van, to the mouth of old Fenrir)
Then I saw faces in the leaves, and they were preaching to me
(and he swallowed us up, swallowed us up)
There is a tree you cannot cut
(he knows your name and all your fears)
You dare not lay an axe to his old branches
They dug a coal mine by your house
(his yelling kept you up all night)
All of your friends got caught between his black teeth
We left our shoes under the ground
(tied yellow feathers to our arms)
And learned the language of the aching mountain
Then I went out west to try to build
(a better version of myself)
My iron tools got swallowed up by spirits
And I knew my head was inside out
So I sold my soul to taste the clouds
Ate from the tree and started digging up the ground
There is a thought you cannot shake of her asleep under the lake
The ice is eating up the surface
And you are the fish sleeping peacefully