diff --git a/.config/kitty/get_cwd.sh b/.config/kitty/get_cwd.sh
index 3e29f61..694feb2 100755
--- a/.config/kitty/get_cwd.sh
+++ b/.config/kitty/get_cwd.sh
@@ -9,13 +9,19 @@
 
 socket_path="${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/kitty.$USER/kitty${1:+-$1}.sock"
 
+# NOTE: Unfortunately kitten-@-ls(1) is slow, so communicate with the socket
+#       directly.
 # NOTE: the backticks are used for hacky line-continuation, taken from
 #       https://stackoverflow.com/a/7729087/2092762c9
-kitten @ --to unix:"$socket_path" ls \
-	| jq -er ".[]`
-		` | select(.is_focused).tabs.[]`
-		` | select(.is_focused).windows.[]`
-		` | select(.is_focused).cwd"
+printf '\eP@kitty-cmd{"cmd":"ls","version":[0,26,0]}\e\\' \
+| nc -U -q0 "$socket_path" \
+| awk '{ print substr($0, 13, length($0) - 14) }' \
+| jq -er ".data`
+	` | fromjson`
+	` | .[]`
+	` | select(.is_focused).tabs.[]`
+	` | select(.is_focused).windows.[]`
+	` | select(.is_focused).cwd"
 
 # An alternative version that uses recursive descent to find focused objects
 # that also have a `.cwd` key: