Beast, I Am You

My darling it will please you to know this:

yesterday I stared the beast in his ugly face & smelled his rotting breath & felt his bony fingers on my shoulder & heard his usual entreaty:

-come with me, you need me, it’s better here & won’t you like it in the dark with me?

you said I should be scared, but he used to climb on my back & dig his coffin fingernails into my shoulders & whisper “my breath is death but you breathe the same air the same atoms belong to you belong to me” & also force my face under the pillow in the middle of the afternoon & this is better than that.

i now know you by your name (it is Death Depression Devil Destroyer of Neurons) & there is the door, sir, there is the door & you are not welcome here & and I did not know you had a tail and you look ridiculous by the way.

your rotting flesh (strips of it fall to the floor, have some respect man, I just cleaned the house) your attempted soft caress- the door I locked is in the mind but I don’t have the key

(but you always find your way out, so until next time, I will be waiting for you, standing behind the door waiting to slit your throat.

Beast, you are of me, but you are not me.)