Moonlight

What right do I have to bask in the moonlight?
That gift from the goddess of my sky
Which washes over my blackened soul.

I am a creature born of night,
Meant to be forgotten
Tasked with all the wrongs of the world.

Does that make me cold? No.
Yet it seems inevitable that
All I’m seen as is the monster I am.

You ask how I can offer devotions to the moonlight?
You ask how I dare to stand in such sacred glows?
You ask how I dream of the subtle warmth I do not deserve?

My answers may ring true
They may ring as a confession
They may ring as confirmation.

Sometimes I wonder
If I stole your heart by accident
As Hades stole Persephone from Olympus.

Not to say I consider my self a god — far from it.
If the gods created us, then we surely created them
And I would never deign to hold myself to our potential heights.

No matter how it came to be
It was not I that dared step
Into that soft cascade of light.

I call myself a monster though —
Perhaps you already know why
But let’s talk of that first.

I kneel to no one
A resilient soul burning bright
Defiant and willful — eager to strike.

I carry no sharp features or implements
A disarming warmth about me
And a heart as vast as the void.

A creature of the dark
Often considered murderous
Or deceitful, selfish, or predatory.

You know that’s not accurate though.
Though the pit I reside in teems
With those set to prove you wrong.

Long have I stood in the shadows
Slaying ego and gods
Ready to claw the throats of tyrants.

I abhor shackles of all kinds
Witnessing the damage of slavery
Upon the souls of humanity.

That is ultimately my drive
What fuels this void-kissed vessel
Ever onward by unrelenting standards.

Yet it was that warmth
Of my dark flame
That caught the eyes of the moon.

I was meant to be another waypoint
A safety against the terrors of the night
A friendly face to soon be forgotten.

The world of light had other plans
And forced that fate
Sooner than it ought have come.

Somber as always, never defeated,
I resumed my fight
Against the true ills of the dark.

After what felt like years
It washed over me yet again
The moonlight illuminating my path.

Why a creature such as me?
A fool of such skepticism
Scared of the light, and those that would linger.

This time though
It was not a lost soul
Seeking shelter through the night.

No, this time the moonlight
Had searched through the dark for me
And keep me company through the night.

Some had taken many nights
To pass through the shadowed valleys
They had become lost in.

Yours shadows had passed
Yet here your pale light pierced
To find me and me alone.

So I found my devotion to the moonlight
My reason to chase a waning moon
Ever distant on the horizon.

No matter how long
I fight in the shadows
I will abide it.

For at the end of the longest night
I know a breaking dawn
Will show me your true face.

When the dark is all you’ve known
It’s easy to forget that pale orb
Is only brilliant for the reflections of stars.

It was the fact I did nothing
To earn such favor
That awoke a desire to chase that day.

When at last the light of dawn
Casts shadows across our realm of dark
Will we pull each other from the abyss?

That’s my hope.
That a monster such as I
Could be worthy of that love.