monstrous
Because if i laugh then i will cry,
and cry and cry and when the water
is wrung from my eyes the laughter will spill
again, harsh and cackling like a hyena's joy,
because i am not the one in control
right now; the monster is. It has broken free
of my restraints to gorge itself upon the meal
that you provide for it. It does not care
that i do not feed it; it does not care
that i do not provide the meal. In truth,
it prefers things that way! I know what not
to feed it; i know how to manage and corral
its appetite and desires.
You do not.
You offer sustenance to it without thought
or care, regardless of any instruction
i may care to give you.
And when the monster has finished
with the meal that you provide it, it will turn
its maw on me and work to swallow
me whole.
It would, if it could.
It offers soft sweet words
and an illusion of protection from all
else because it knows that it must coax me,
persuade me, because it knows that i know
that it does not care for me alive, it only
wishes to glut upon and savor the warmth in
my flesh and the power in my bones.
But when it has fed itself upon the feast
that you provide for it, it does not need
to offer me soft sweet words and illusions
of protection, for then it has the strength
to ignore my cold shoulders and
pointed reminders of every time it lied before.
After your feast, the monster has no restraints
upon it and gambols merrily about my soul,
taking large bites here and there that it drags
back to its cave to bury and preserve for the
long winters of my resistance.
The monster is patient.
It would kill me, if it could.
It knows that you give it the strength
to do so, one inch at a time. It knows
that by dividing my attention between it
and you, that it can slip out the postern gate
and down to the encampment where your
unintentional siege machines await it, knowing
that i will have to breach my own gates to retrieve it.
The monster is patient.
The monster is clever.
The monster is mine, and i am the monster.