TO THE MONSTER:

I’ve said it all, the insect tells you, its little frail wings buzzing harmonious with the sound of nightfall & the sound of 

angel choirs from underneath the desert, 

holy scriptures lost to time, 

where you find God in the teeth of a cactus & only you can hear the way the summer chases the bugs inside—searching for any relief—an insignificant creature that only wants what every human being worth kindness & being saved from the scorching, skin- peeling atmosphere of our rose-withered planet desires: pity. A place to rest. Do you ever think about it that way? That sometimes even the smallest creatures can carry more humanity in their tiny bodies than we will ever be able to grasp in our dry, fleeting lives? It has said all that it needs to say; be kind. Find a way to be kind. 

You take your tough-guy stance & your too-big steel toed boots & crush it, you’ve never spent a moment outside of your illuminated fantasy world with the bright carnival lights & the acceptance of your father, and your Father & the largest idea of love on a big hot air balloon, floating down and shattering the doves into glass beneath your feet, amen. You don’t know how to soothe the pain 

and you’re not about to start now. 

I spend too many years thinking about the monster trapped behind my walls. It’s cathartic, isn’t it? Tearing out everything you feel with a knife made of elephant tusk & replacing it with nothing—permanent emptiness—a tectonic shift from loving to understanding that The Universe, with its many eyes, cannot salvage the remaining parts of you, cannot distinguish it from the other ashes. And every night your body is buried in the grave of silence & every night you find another shell in the sand, each with an interior carving of the existence that the monster stole from you 

when it did its surgery, when it implanted itself, utterly diseased,in the asymmetrical places, like where one of your hips is curved a bit lower than the other, or when your knees pull themselves away from the rest of what is supposed to be your body, yours, your autonomy stored in various veins, because they are the only sensible part of your being. Every other limb functions in synchronicity—moves as they are supposed to— feels pain like wounded animals do. You’ve been shot in the leg with an arrow, missed. The hunters try again, to reach your heart. They try. They try. They keep trying.