The Sound of Light Breaking

A poetic interpretation of the song, “SOS” uniquely sung by Dimash Kudaibergen 

It shudders into being, an oil slick glimmer on water,
colors dancing over themselves,
spilling from the throat like something primordial and winged.
Not a voice. Not exactly.
More like a filament humming,
a line of blue glow so thin you have to believe in it
before you can see it.

The piano moves first,
hands pressing into the keys like carving pewter,
slow and deliberate, shaping something that will outlive the body.
The notes settle like red clay after rain,
thick with their own gravity, warm as vapor against glass.
And then

the voice.

Not argentine, not gold
this is lead crystal catching blaze,
prismed glow collapsing inward,
a dragonfly’s eye shifting between colors too fast to name.
It moves the way glass breaks
not shattering, but fracturing along the line it was always meant to follow.
Each note slips like a knife through parchment,
so smooth you don’t feel the cut until it’s already inside you.

Higher, now
the note tilts, cursory, defiant,
climbing the spine like fingers skimming a rosary,
each note a bead pressed between teeth,
Chest tightening, gravity restraining,
the sound of mother-of-pearl shifting under water,
liquid heft bending glow until blue becomes violet,
until violet becomes something you can’t hold.

And still, it rises.

It shouldn’t be possible,
like watching a hummingbird hover in place,
muscles snapping faster than thought.
It should fall,
should break against its own body,
but it doesn’t.

It just keeps reaching,
until the silence takes it back,
until what’s left is only the glow of quivering live-coals in the dark,
the iridescence of something unseen
the last glint of bedrock striking bedrock
before the blaze comes.