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People Are Animals

by Darth Nater

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1.
I’ve got a little ivory knife that I keep tethered to my side And you have an unmatched desire to stay alive With our skills combined we might make it through the night And tomorrow we will worry about tomorrow I’ve got a backpack filled with rice and a love that will not die It might not taste like prime rib but I swear it will suffice It will be enough for you and I We’ve got a plot of modest size and an ungodly amount of time And that’s all it takes to make a paradise With our wills combined we might make it through the night And tomorrow we will worry about tomorrow Yes tomorrow we will worry about tomorrow We’ve got the length of this confine and the rest of our lives It might not be a wide and open plain but it’ll do just fine It will be enough for you and I We’re critically endangered We’re on the brink We’re the only ones left now We’re going extinct We’re critically endangered We’re on the brink We’re the only ones left now We’re going extinct We’re critically endangered We’re on the brink By the time that you hear this We’ll be extinct
2.
Open my eyes, it’s 6:58 I’ve got a little over an hour to live it up before you wake Put Tretinoin on my toothbrush and Colgate on my face I guess it’s gonna be that kind of day Listening to The Sunset Tree dangerously loud on repeat Doing my best to become deaf by seventeen I had a dream your screams were Israel’s trumpets And I was the wall of Jericho I crumbled with a single blow Open your eyes promptly at 8:00 With a skull-splitting migraine and a face-melting hate You put bourbon in your coffee and bacon on your plate I guess it’s gonna be that kind of day Watching the local news, all the tragedies repeat You recognize the same b-roll they aired last week I had a dream that you were inside the ark of the covenant And I was Indiana Jones You turned the Nazis into bones Like the acid rain That creeps through the long neglected faults in our window pane The same blood that sits in your fists like a stagnant puddle is crawling through my veins I can’t escape Out here in Broome County In the bowels of the Valley of Opportunity You haven’t held a job since...um, well I’m not really sure you ever had a job I might not stand up to you But I keep a packed duffel bag in my car And I might not ever leave you But I sure know what you are To tell you the truth, every sip you take Turns you more and more into a great disgusting ape You’ll have a headache in the morning I will be blamed for it But that’s okay That’s okay To tell you the truth, every sip you take Turns you more and more into a big repulsive ape A fifth of whiskey and you’ll faint And I’ll drag you to your cage But that’s okay That’s okay If I stay in this godforsaken house for one more day I’m afraid that I’ll end up like Vina Fay Wray If I had my way it would have been you Who was gunned down in a pit at the Cincinnati Zoo I’m going to the Congo And I won’t be back soon I won’t be back soon
3.
This room grows smaller Palm trees grow taller Outside I see their green leaves waving and I wish that they would die When you come by I pretend to be asleep You leave a sand dollar at the table by my feet And then retreat To god knows where I don’t care I hope you’re happy there I hope this island erupts before my skull caves in Before my spine constricts and melds with the curves of this bed I hope this island erupts while I still have eyes to witness it with While I can still inhale some sweet volcanic ash While my brain can still perceive dread When you come by I pretend to be asleep You leave a small black leather bound book at my feet And I read about a man who roamed the desert sands and healed people just like me And I don’t really believe, But the words are kind of comforting And I don’t really believe, But the words are kind of comforting In the twinkling of an eye In the twinkling of an eye In the twinkling of an eye We shall be changed In the twinkling of an eye We shall be changed We shall be changed This is my only body and I have not treated it well But one day my slimy innards will wriggle out and inch their way into a new shell This is my only body and I have not treated it well But one day my scum covered innards will ooze out and inch their way into a new shell
4.
You are an insect Insignificant A termite in an igloo A fly that no one swats An ant that’s not the queen A flea on a junkyard dog The head is connected to the thorax and the thorax to the abdomen At least that’s I what I was taught You can be whatever you want You can even be an astronaut Just hurry up before you rot in a wooden box under earth and rock Where the vermin play Where the worms confirm every word I say You are a tick in a taxidermist’s workshop I am a louse on a man with alopecia You are a moth in a nudist’s closet I’ve got two antennae but I still fail to reach ya You are an insect A nuisance A beetle stuck between a screen and a window An aphid in a corn maze A fruit fly in a model home The head is connected to the thorax and the thorax to the abdomen Without a single ligament or tendon It’s all held in by a thin exoskeleton Tougher and stronger than the skin that I was born in Growing and molting and molting and growing Slowly eroding through circular motion You are an insect Resilient A hundred legged creature that refuses to be stomped on A cockroach at the rapture after everyone else has gone You are an insect Significant A mosquito trapped in amber waiting for the right geneticist To reach into your abdomen and retrieve a t-rex
5.
Let’s go The next time I see you I’m gonna spit in your face The next time I see you I’m gonna spit in your face
6.
It’s been three long months Of steady walking Our feet are bloody stumps And there’s no sign of stopping My grandmother leads us She cleans us and feeds us She can sense a stampede by the way the soil shakes She can spot a mamba from 100 feet away And she keeps marching on She remembers the paths the ancestors taught her We will survive this - yes, yes We will find water And on that day The kids will play in the marshy savanna grass And laugh and splash Their voices will be joyous horns forged in everlasting brass The sky will split in half like a stone struck with a staff And shower us in telegraphs, raindrops of dots and dashes Wash our scabby hides until our flesh is as immaculate As a calf that’s just been born, all wide-eyed and miraculous But for now my grandmother marches on She remembers the paths the ancestors taught her We will survive this - yes, yes We will find water But I snap back to real life And realize where I am I’m recounting the times that we had That were both awful and sweet But you hear the tales I tell like they’re someone else’s stories I hate the way you look at me I hate this sterile facility I hate the condescending tone that I constantly appropriate But what I hate the most is that I can’t wait to escape And each passing day A few more memories are purged from your brain They rise up from your rotting mind and try to fly to heaven But dementia is a poacher with an AK47 Yes, dementia is a poacher with an AK47 And each passing hour A few more of your memories are lost forever Completely devoured Cause old age is a pride of lions that cannot be overpowered Old age is a pride of lions that cannot be overpowered Old age is a pride of lions that cannot be overpowered Old age is a pride of lions that cannot be overpowered Old age is a pride of lions that cannot be overpowered
7.
Caught in a snowstorm Forced to stay indoors If our furnace should break Well, I will keep you warm Watching BBC nature documentaries Of places that we haven’t seen projected on bedsheets in 1080p A volcanic island in the Antarctic populated solely by chinstrap penguins The things they go through for their young chicks Shit, it’s enough to make your heart skip And on the fluttering screen sits an entire species, speechless and freezing Beneath them lie you and I, seeking heat that’s not fleeting And through the glossy stereo comes the voice of Sir David Attenborough Describing their trials, surviving in style with feather tuxedos Zavodovski, baby You and me We are gonna be something Deadly, smelly, crowded colony Glorious anonymity Watching the snow fall through a frosted, glass portal The lifespan of a snowflake makes you feel damn near immortal The sort of moment that I’d die before I forgot It’s the more morbid notions that I think about a lot If I ever get battered by the waves Bloodied and tattered, I’ll crawl for as long as it takes to get home safe Back to you Our love burns hot and bright, turns pleistocene ice into wisps of water vapor That’s right, I’m talking about that kind of love that melts glaciers That’s right, I’m talking about that kind of love that burns hot and bright and makes polar bears endangered
8.
Labrador to Cape Town Cape Town to London London to Melbourne And then back again I’m chasing the daylight I’m chasing the daylight I’m chasing the daylight I’m chasing the daylight Wellington to Moscow Moscow to Santiago Santiago to Boston I’m not going home again I’m chasing the daylight I’m chasing the daylight I’m chasing the daylight I’m chasing the daylight
9.
Pitch black, switchblade in hand A boy takes a swig from a brown paper bag The less he feels his limbs, the more he feels like a man A stitched badger patch on the back of his jacket Reveals an affection for dubious actions Smoking a cigarette, planning infractions These streets are your friend Big Ben sings to you, lost birds cling to you These streets are your friend You know every twist and bend better than the riff raff that runs them Pitch black, raving and mad A boy drags his feet and delivers his wrath To each unlucky stranger that crosses his path He spits in their faces and curses their backs He laughs at their pain and snatches their cash To stash it away in the springs of his mattress Next to a package of dangerous contraband And whatever else that his meager means manage He drunkenly dashes past churches and masses Stumbles across some pretty, blonde lasses He leers and he grabs and he brashly harasses Smooth as rusty nails and sweet as battery acid A stunning girl in a black feather cap Lifts her delicate hand, she’s had enough of his crap So she smacks him with style, with grace and with class Which signals her boyfriend to come kick some ass These streets are your friend Big Ben sings to you, lost birds cling to you These streets are your friend You know every twist and bend better than the riff raff that runs them Pitch black Plastered and sad A boy throws a brown paper bag in the trash He cuts his hand on the shards of smashed glass And smears it across his chest like a badge He’s grown tired of wreaking havoc He thought that this life would be more romantic He runs from his past as fast as he can In fact, he runs so fast, he slams into a parked Jag The owner comes out, this guy’s jacked His biceps have biceps, his traps have traps His knuckles are white, gripping a pipe made of brass There’s a feline patch on the back of his jacket The boy starts to gasp, “Hey it’s just a scratch” But the man is not having none of that The car’s my dad’s, I just got it waxed I oughta put a gash in you the same way you slashed my jag Five more lions materialize and advance This isn’t broadway, there’s no snaps, there’s no dance Just a boy surrounded by half a dozen cats And everything goes pitch black
10.
If blessings come in disguise so do curses Heralded by suspiciously kind nurses They offer coffee and tea And shrink wrapped shortbread cookies Anything you need, they say, anything you need Well how about another decade, or three Or a time machine or at least some sort of warning This isn't supposed to be happening They were just supposed to fix your knees You’d be gone for a week and then back on your feet But now you’re bound to a bed And serpentine tubes hiss and twist like they’d rather die than give you oxygen We take turns approaching your side saying final goodbyes as you struggle to breathe Your lips are dried and cracked like you've been wandering through the desert for the past month and a half And in a way you have It was a bright and sunny day What seems a lifetime ago When a preliminary test found a tumor the size of New Mexico in your chest Next thing I know, it’s a month later, I’m wearing my finest clothes And I’m standing in a funeral parlor reading a handwritten note your granddaughter wrote and placed in your casket I don’t completely remember the specifics But I think it went something like this I love you sooooo(o) much Those 5 or 6 o’s still don’t do that love justice I miss you I wish you were here You were my hero You made my life better That letter put it better than I ever could Those words lunged from the page like fangs, pierced my heel and drew blood I hid in the bathroom to suck the venom from my wounds And i found myself singing a short, smooth little tune It struck hard and it struck fast Like a rattlesnake hiding in the grass I suppose I’m usually more poetic I suppose I don’t usually plagiarize a 7 year old But death is not poetic and it cannot be captured with animal metaphors I usually weave narratives with meticulous stitching and fabric characters But I'm the character for once And I don't like it very much I usually invent people in my mind and build the details of their lives Draw their pitfalls and joys like a topographic map The low slopes and sudden cliffs The hills and the mountains I usually construct characters and write rhyming lines about their lives But this time the ones I love most are the ones I got on my mind It struck hard and it struck fast Like a rattlesnake hiding in the grass

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ten stories about people who act like animals

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released June 24, 2017

Scott Pilecki (Tenor Saxophone)
Martin Noworyta (Tenor Saxophone)
Written & Produced by Nate Noworyta

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Darth Nater Buffalo, New York

Funny songs. Sad songs. Funny, sad songs.

Darth Nater is the solo project of Buffalo-based musician Nate Noworyta.

Lyrically dense story-songs filled with detailed imagery and characters. Musically rooted in folk and indie rock.
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