A mother with her son, the boy sat on her knee

Fire ablaze, cracking the drudges of winter away

He peered out the window, eyes to all he could see,

“The stars tell stories,” his mother would say.

Hercules, Orion, Perseus; all heroes alike

All shared a blanket of the night sky as home

Speechless warriors, no leader to order a strike

Doves trapped frozen along the highest dome.

A boy and his mother; a queen with his prince,

She told him the sky watched his adventures all

The queen has gone to live in the sky since,

She’d told him that’s where the fallen go to fall.

The boy grows to be a man, now afraid of the stars

He’d not gone on adventures aside from in his mind

With each day, the walls turn more and more into bars,

His childlike joy becoming harder and harder to find.

The king, so unlike the queen, kept the boy inside

His cruelty matched her kindness, intensity to hold,

Had taken a bar and to the prince’s hands, he tied

He shouted and pleaded, so long his blood turned cold

The prince had long since become prisoner, trapped,

He begged the stars to help, but they had no arms to grasp

Weariness dragged his bones, his body, it wrapped

His voice rugged and thin, left to only a mere rasp. 

There was no prince, no queen, no king, no prison

But there was no mistake, still as real as you and me

The stars still watch, a mother, a father, and a son

The story simply warped, as stories tend to be

The stars tell stories, this is still very true

But the stories get lost, words twisted and turned,

There’s still something ringing through and through,

Something the human mind feels to be yearned.

The boy was not a prince, but still a prisoner

The father was not a king, but still very cruel

The mother was not a queen, but a listener

The stars remained the same, shining like a jewel

Stories have princes, prisoners, kings and queens

The stars tell those stories, but they have no tongue

The tellers, ones that are blessed with the means

Leave the truth buried, the details are left unsung

The stars were there, they know right from wrong

Those with open mouths and loose tongues tell the lies

The stars know where all the pieces should belong

But the people are the ones who believe they are wise. 

The prince was left without the queen, his mother,

And, he too, went to where the forever fallen go to rest

Very often, this story is confused with another

The stars now, they are left with only one request

Look to the sky the next time you tell a story of heroes,

Of princes, king, and queens, of sons, fathers, and mothers

In a field, sailing at sea, even out of your familiar windows

Look to the sky, and the mistruths will be left in smothers.