Beast.
by Vanessa Hope
3 Months
It eats time like candy
Lips gleaming with hours
Belching thin, atmospheric serenity
6 Months
It festers in rank foulness
Sweating bugs and yeast
Tubes emerge from its veins
Every bodily fluid the wrong color
9 Months
With pointed, gluey tongue
It dabs your brain with analgesic
1 Year
Heavy with allegiance
Struggling to see
Where the beast ends
Where you begin
Fever Dream
As did Mr. Hyde
As did the dark villains of the comics
So too shall this younger twin
(Achingly similar to the partner who came before)
Cease to require charity
Not for the struggle in making one
Not for the struggle of being halved
15 Months
Questioning understanding and standing up at all.
