Mother spider,

she wanes to wrap her children -

it's a sordid affair,

and eight faucets fault at once,

and it must be done.

No burial is more loving

than one tucked away

into dustbins of discards.

No grave is lonelier

than one left unmade:

a lazy morning's heartbreak

that won't roll out of bed.

She sows pristine dresses

for her paper-doll children.

Tomorrow they will finally

fray, and she'll be left with

split milk's acrid taste.

Outside it's February, and

the closet's own brittle bones

have weathered.

It's surgical. Medical. An invisible scalpel cuts through his spine, drawing red against the pale skin and he sheds his flesh as if he was stepping out of a bathing robe. His insides are bloody red and veiny blue, and at least that proves that even if he is not a man, he is certainly alive. That alone is enough, most days. Bones crack, take odd shapes and awkward angles. Eyes roll back, the white of the sclera replacing the pleasant hazel. Is this living or is it just surviving?

Keep him in formaldehyde and turn back now. He'd rather be stripped bare than remain rotting.

The poison seeps in, inevitably, a thousand times viler than arsenic (and lacking the sweet almond taste). It suffocates your vessels, replaces every last drop of blood with sulfuric acid until you're burning, burning. You may never stop burning at all.

There is no pain greater than being ripped apart and stitched back together in seconds. Soon he'll be dressed in claws and teeth and fur that aren't his (he just borrows them for a night, every month). Soon, he'll forget his own name and howl at the moon and feed on raw meat and bathe in foreign smelling blood; a bastardized animal ritual taken from the Romans' own frenzied Bacchanalia.

Rinse and repeat.