Lunar Luminosity

The crescent moon glows modestly

in the dead of night.

Its presence is always made known.

Mysteriously luminous—

Is it quietly confident

or deeply diffident?

Despite its predictability

and its cyclical pattern,

a full moon retains its novelty.

So far out of reach,

always unattainable,

much like the relationship

between her and herself.

Her love for herself

in its thinnest crescent,

almost invisible,

almost entirely absent,

but the glow from the crescent

is enough to keep her alive.

Her self-love passes through the cycle

each day waxing

until it’s wonderfully full.

And she can once again

be entirely and emphatically as she is,

blissfully unafraid of her own existence.

Yet the moon will inevitably begin to wane.

She shrinks into herself

waning with the phases of the moon.

Diminishing her chance

of being too deeply assessed.

She gleams modestly

against the vast emptiness of the night.

Unmistakably present,

her own glowing image of herself,

constantly unstable,

forever cycling

in the fathomless darkness of her mind.