The Origin Of Language In Dread

Imagine the second
when the first proto-human
to have their consciousness flicker
from “just before human” 
into “fully human”  

looked around at the other
apes-on-the-brink
and felt for the first time
humanly, utterly alone.

It was likely enough
to drive them back
over the threshold into
the comfort of animal thought,
but it left a residue of that fear,

an ember within
which flared and faded, flared and faded,
until the fire could spread at last to others.
They had burned for want of that first language,
were burned by the terror
that there were none like them.

Imagine the joy
when the First Word was spoken,
understood, repeated — 
rain on blistered skin,

upraised faces inventing song.