Neon light pulls her apart

Until the skin is stretched taught

The screams in her throat melted like sweet taffy

Into a hurricane of speeding photons

She thought it would be the darkness

She thought it would be monsters

But monsters are brighter in the face

Of a cosmic electric discharge

That splits the stratosphere in two

Than the ones who hide, cower in shadows

Have never tasted the brilliance of sunlit liberty

And may have never been