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the fire that learned to speak
The Fire That Learned to Speak
(a myth for the star that longed to be lyric)
R136a1—he of the blinding breath,
born deep in the Tarantula's cradle,
where no shepherd speaks and no flute dares echo.
He watched from the hem of night,
jealous of the soft ones: the lyre-weavers on Parnassus,
the soul-singers in Elysium’s bloom.
Their words— not forged, but feathered.
Their rhymes— not burned, but borne.
He raged in silence. His hydrogen heart hissed at odes.
He flared brighter each time a stanza floated skyward
and did not belong to him.
Until one quiet ripple
across the void—
a whisper, not a warning.
A minor muse looked up, tired of marble and metre,
and asked, simply, “Do you burn because you cannot speak,
or because you have never been asked to?”
And the star, used to being worshipped, paused—
because never had he been invited.
Not like this.
Not as flame who yearned for form.
Not as tempest who trembled at tenderness.
Not as a god who could also be ghost.
They gave him no laurels. Only listening.
And so he wrote— not with ink,
but with pulses in ultraviolet and longing.
Not classical, not metred, but real.
Now poets wake and say the stars hum stanzas.
They don’t know it’s just one who finally found his voice.
.
.
