Weight of the Wolfskin

Verse

Grandfather skinned the last wolf off the ridge in sixty-one

Said the mountain don't forgive but the mountain can be won

Stitched the pelt to canvas with a needle and a prayer

Wore it through three winters just to prove that he was there

Steel plates bolted to the gatepost, humming with the cold

Left the coat in cedar, said it'll fit you when you're grown

Sleeves too long, collar heavy, felt like carrying a throne

Now I walk the scrapyard fence at four with a flashlight beam

Steam off my breath collecting like a debt I've never seen

Dogs bark at the shadows but the shadows don't care

Frost sits on the wolfskin like it's earning its share

I count the nights in scratches on the underside of the sleeve

Forty-one and counting, and the cold ain't learned to leave

Pre-Chorus

Tell me why the heaviest things are the ones we choose to hold

Tell me why the coldest nights are the ones that make you whole

Chorus

I wear the weight of the wolfskin, not the trophy, just the debt

Every claw stitched in the collar is a promise I ain't met

Cold don't scare me, hunger taught me how the season ends

I carry the whole pack forward, wearing where I've been

Verse

Ash from the burn barrel settles soft like snow that lied

Gate latch frozen shut, I thaw it with my palm and pride

Kid tried to hop the fence in March, thought the yard was free

Looked me dead in the collar, saw the teeth, and let it be

I ain't never bit a soul, but the wolfskin does the work

Some men wear their armor loud, I wear mine and stay alert

My daughter asked why the coat smell like woodsmoke and old rain

I told her that's your great-grandfather, that's the mountain in the grain

She'll get it when she's grown, sleeves too long, same as me

Heavy ain't the burden, heavy's how you learn to see

Forty-one nights turned to eight hundred on the sleeve

Still counting every winter that the wolfskin let me leave

Pre-Chorus

Tell me why the heaviest things are the ones we choose to hold

Tell me why the coldest nights are the ones that make you whole

Chorus