Francesca Kritikos - ​the witch's house lyrics

her canopied house, the one the trees bent over as if hiding her shame, burned down last year. we were there. we smelled the smoke in the air, heard the sirens. we had all done our time peeking through the mouse-chewed holes in her garage door, flattening her fat plants to sniff the concoctions of her garden, as if we could taste her poison on our child-pink tongues. we had never seen her, but we knew the things only children can know, the way witches make vibrations in still summer air. we felt them through the hot asphalt where we loved & hurt each other. she made her way into us – witches are always impostors, too. our thick & plump hearts stung as we ran past her house like victims & thieves, like everything. her house burned down. we were there. now the trees are gone: her shame melted with her & the rubble is her punishment. dead or alive, we don't know. we never saw her, but we felt her bites, we felt her knock out our milk teeth. they are gone now, like the trees.