Becoming

~ Anonymous

The zombies of summer leaves
Skitter-scratching across shadowed pavement,
Outriders on the Halloween winds

Tall oaks, once the royalty of summer,
Now nearly naked and windswept
Reluctantly bowing to
The incoming rule of
The Halloween King

Short the days
And long the nights,
Home to the ghosts
Of your fears,
Quiet rustlings,
Groans of a lonely gate
Rust-whispering,
 “Come.  Come.
Let my darkness swallow up
Your half-yearning, half-terrified
Desire to know what I hold.”

Fearful starts at the grasping shadow
Of a street sign
Swaying in a dance of near-awakening

Taste,
Embrace,
The dark side of your self
To see,
To be,
The very things that you fear

To be
The claws,
The teeth,
The terror in the night
The monster under the bed
The thing hiding in the old house

And hold sway with the Halloween King