I begged for a spell from a wizened old crone
in the hopes I'd find purpose carved into my bones,
but she told me: It cannot be done.
Of thy matchsticks, long burning though each of them are
there is one which will shine with the light of a star
rooted deep at the heart of thy being.
Let it eat its small sisters and render thee whole.
Forge a core of warm steel in thy soft-centered soul
and follow the smoke to the fire.
Built of light as ye are, there is little to gain
scrubbing blood from thy bones to decipher the stain.
Instead ye must fuel the inferno.
What am I but bone tucked beneath fragile skin?
I am human without and so must be within.
I have nothing inside me to burn.
The crone clucked her tongue and she gnashed her sharp teeth.
I have looked at thy spirit and seen what's beneath.
Ye shall burn, one way or another.
Burn slowly, as if ye were made of wet leaves
and you'll crumble to ash 'neath the weight of thy grief.
Instead give thyself over with joy!
Let the fire consume ye and warm ye all through.
Let it harden thy bones. Let it birth ye anew
and build up thy dreams from the embers.
She hissed and she spat and she floating aloft
and said, Do not confuse tender for weak or for soft.
Ye have begged and so I have blessed ye.
To burn so completely must come at great cost.
Would not my small self be charred dark and lost
should the fire consume me so wholly?
Fear thee not being lost, for ye already are;
clumsy body wrapped tight 'round a slumbering star.
Would ye wake or lie still, sadly sleeping.
It is not my decision, but heed thy own truth:
whether tinder and oil or blood, flesh, and tooth,
ye shall burn until it has destroyed thee.
Let it eat up thy soul in careful cut rations,
or else feed the flame with thy hopes and thy passions.
Now begone, little star, and choose well.
There are stars lost in souls and a witch in the glade
who wields words with the heft of a well-balanced blade
and decisions of consequence yet to be made,
but I have a hearth which needs tending.