I live in perpetual darkness.

On occasion, I feel the warm glow of another. That gentle, unmistakable heat.

I reach for it, and I am cast into a desert with a spotlight above.

I am flooded with sensation, feeling, emotion.

My cold, outer shell melts like a chocolate candy, and I am left exposed.

The warmth is soothing and refreshing, but it soon begins to burn.

A slight sneer, a glance between friends.

A match is lit, a fire starts.

I don’t belong here.

I scramble out of the gymnasium while trying to maintain some dignity, yet darkness makes it hard.

She refuses to accept me as quickly as she had before.

As she always had.

I flew too close to the light.

I have to be a little understanding, though. I hate insects too.

I fight for her attention, and finally earn her sweet caress.

It is soft and familiar.

I let her numb my burns.

“Were they ever there?” I ask myself with forced innocence as I stare at my charred skin. Soon, however, she gets carried away.

Her caress begins to morph into an embrace, ever-tightening, until I am suffocating.

Smothered silently outside the classroom, in the gap.

I stand, stone faced.

Paralyzed.

I think I hear my eyes telling me they want to cry, but they don’t.

I don’t know why.

The steady stream of people coming out of the auditorium slows. I watch them go by.

I beg them to do something, I just don’t tell them what or why.

No one stops.

I still remain silent.

Darkness begins to loosen her hold on me, finally having forgiven me for my moment of rebellion.

My attempt to stray outside the nest.

She laughs, and her eyes twinkle from above.

The Night.

My only true friend.