MONSTER THEORY

When do we become so rotten the earth won’t even take us back?

What is it that will finally force us to strip from our cloaks of humanity?

What makes me terrible, truly? The fire or what I choose to do with it?

Is this a monster? This version of me, now,

branding every word I write like a gutting knife?

When I dream of slicing you open and crawling inside you,

of making a place where I can finally fit?

When I wake up and turn around to tell you?

What is a monster?

It’s what slips through the cracks in my voice, it’s the pill I can’t seem to swallow,

screaming take me as I am or kill me

screaming peel my skin off like a blindfold

screaming love me despite the horror

screaming please, God, love me because of it.

Dante Émile

published in Not Deer Magazine