Beast in The Writer

A fitful slumber,
through gauzy windows peeped
the Beast imprisoned in a cage of rib bones.

Held there, a burrowing rodent against a cement floor,
how he gnashed his teeth against knowledge,
preferring the empty-headedness of bliss.

A grimy black hole blossomed beneath him.
Like a thirsty Spring flower, spreading ever outward.
Invading and conquering,
his arms became wisteria tendrils-
choking the daylight.

Outrage lopped the heads off of happy poppies,
the gentle iris stripped bare and
the smiling forest floor wept under attack.

Even the trees allowed themselves to be uprooted,
laid devastated, and watching sideways.

I permit the Beast to massacre delight
in favor of anguish.
I allow him to rage against
me from the inside out.

Acquiesce to the thrumming of his drum beat,
those are my ribs he cracks open to escape.

And that is me, flayed open on the table,
one red heart, a blackened wound,
and a field of flattened flowers in my belly,
where grief grows, and then explodes.

Last updated February 26, 2015