The Elements, Vol 1 · Track 12 · middle
Phosphorus
Sung BY the element Phosphorus (symbol P, atomic number 15), in FIRST PERSON — a character with a fear, a vanity, or a secret. Write ORIGINAL lyrics TRUE to this specific element's real chemistry, history and place in the world: the light-bringer discovered by boiling barrels of urine; you glow with a cold witch-fire in the dark, you strike every match, you are in every strand of DNA — and you are also the white fire that falls from the sky. NOT a generic 'I am an element' — find what is uniquely, specifically true of Phosphorus. Clean, DistroKid/YouTube-safe. Register to the character.
Lyrics
You can find me in the dark. Not with heat. A cold light. A ghost-shine. They called me Noctiluca. Night-shiner. I am the light-bringer. Hennig Brand, in Hamburg, 1669. He was looking for the stone, for the secret to gold. He boiled the barrels down. Fifty barrels of human piss. The stench of a city, looking for a sun. And in the black retort, at the end of it all... He found me. Not gold. A pale green witch-fire, clinging to the glass. A cold fire, he said. The thing he never looked for. I am the spark on the striking strip. I am the strength in your every bone. I am the ladder in your DNA. The ghost-light you follow home. But the light-bringer carries a shadow. The fire that gives can also take. I am the cold glow in the marrow. And the burning you can't escape. Then came the factories, 1831. The Lucifer matches for a penny a box. The young women with their hands in my white dust. They called it phossy jaw. A little light for their pockets. A glow that ate the bone from their faces. They carried my fire home. And I carried them away. I am the spark on the striking strip. I am the strength in your every bone. I am the ladder in your DNA. The ghost-light you follow home. But the light-bringer carries a shadow. The fire that gives can also take. I am the cold glow in the marrow. And the burning you can't escape. Look inside. I am your engine. I am the P in ATP. I am the double helix, the code that makes you. The architecture of memory and bone. Every thought you have is a spark I carry. Every cell is built upon my frame. You can't live without me. You shouldn't forget my name. But I am also the smoke over the city. The white fire that falls like rain. The star that sticks to skin. The glow that ignites again, and again, in the air. I am the light-bringer. See how I burn.