Shedding our Skin

When darkness reigns –

An amalgamating, thick

And close shroud –

Seeming to swallow

Our entire world

Without mercy

Without distinction;

We huddle and hover –

Moths – unable to resist the

Nagging desire to

Give our selves up.

Some of us are willing to

Lay down our lives. To

Scorch and burn and

Visibly writhe in pain;

If only we are allowed and

Able to bask in the

Eerie luminescence of the neon flame.

It is then, that we would be wise to 

Remember that we are

Breathing, human bodies utterly,

Indecently covered in dead fibers.

The juice long dried up.

We must look like moldy, shriveled fruit

Rotting on the vine.

So much potential that we

Must not see as squandered.

Instead we learn from

Our fumbling and groping towards

An accumulation that initiates 
The ability to

Shed our skin.

Stretching our sense of self

We may merge with

All that we fear when

The lights go out.

Then we become blanketed by

The twinkling menagerie,

Drunk and lulled to sleep,

Embraced and bathed by

The celestial glow
 Of Aphrodite’s elixir.