What Happens Next: A Gallimaufry

melancholic romantic comic cynic. bi & genderqueer. fantasy writer. sysrae on ao3.

Six Things To Know About Monsters

One: It’s okay to feel like a monster

sometimes. (Most monsters are human,

after all.)


Two: most monsters are human.

You should maybe watch out for that,

and them

and you

on nights when the moon is an eyetooth

gnawing the sky.


Three: there’s different types of monster.

Some, your common or garden variety,

are dangerous only to themselves

or unguarded hearts;

these will telegraph their nature

with bright colours, tattoos,

open books of poetry, long conversations;

this is how you know

they’re worth your time.


(As with scorpions,

it’s the bland insidious camouflaged ones

you have to watch out for: monsters

that don’t know they’re monsters; who think

all kisses should taste of their venom

and nine to five suits.)


Four: there is no right way

to approach monstrosity.

Life is a process

of ritual scarification: your keloid bones

are just as valid here

as tentacles, night-horrors,

mirror-ghosts. Come on in.

I promise, we all bite

gently

if you ask.


Five: no matter what they tell you,

most people want to be monsters.

All these smooth-skinned dolls we sell

and tell ourselves we want to be

are Chinese whispers run amok,

a dream of a copy of old receipts

for products that never existed

and never will.


Six: here’s the truth:

all people are monsters, sometimes.

Even the sleekest specimen is

a mess of magic under the microscope:

horns like bone spurs,

buried feathers itching at angry scapulae

like ingrown virtues.

Let them out. Reveal yourselves.


A monster alone is a cautionary tale,

but monsters together, darling –

we’re miracles.  

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