A Poem by Stellana (Memoirs of a Vampire)

I smell the night, so bracing and clean.
While the moon radiates a silvery sheen.

Inside the people laugh as they dwell.
I stay behind my mask, inside my shell.

I lie in wait, in wait, in wait.
For the coming of that which I most hate.

What do you wait for? They say.
I whisper so harshly: The coming of day.

But you hate light! They exclaim worriedly.
Yes, I reply. Exactly.

I lie in wait for the sun so I may hide.
So I may scurry back inside.

To my land of drawn curtains and the single closed door.
Away from it and our great war.

They wonder why I say I can smell the night.
With its glistening stars and its pale moonlight.

But I can, and how!
The darkness, its beauty, they shun, disavow.

I notice the night and its stunning aroma, its beautiful smell.
I let the dark take me over, it is a hex, a spell.

It is clean and pure, like a mountain spring.
It brushes against me, like a frail avian wing.

Come inside! Come inside! They say, they say.
No! I cry, no! I must wait for day.

I admire the night with its mysterious darkness.
But I hate the light, it brings me sadness.

I am a strange creature, I do not rest.
My fragile heart does not beat within my chest.

I am bloodless, forever in bloodlust.
Take your life, instinct ensures I must.

To loved and have lost?
Never, the pain is too high a cost.

I run, I run, forever more.
The mask hides a man, a thing, as I cross the shore.

I look back across the pallid water.
To the land, that which I have had to slaughter.

It comes through, like a wave down the beach.
I lunge forward, try to reach.

But it slips away, like all I have loved, all I have needed.
I asked, I prayed, I begged, I pleaded.

But still I go unheeded.