The Beast Learns Hunger

There is a beast beneath my ribs.

He wants to come out.

But I tamed him like a bird in a cage.

And it sleeps poorly.

And its teeth shine like a ruined sun,

its breath smells of smoke,

winter.

And the streets call it monstrously dangerous.

Children would run from it

if they saw the shape of its shadow

dragging itself across the moon.

But they do not know the truth.

But they do not know the truth.

The beast is not evil.

Only starving.

It stands at the edge of her doorway

like a wolf left out in the snow,

trying to hide blood inside its mouth,

trying to soften claws into trembling hands.

Because the beast has learned

that love fears sharp things.

So it lowers its head.

It speaks gently.

It hides its fangs

behind poetry,

behind a nervous laughter,

behind a voice pretending to be calm.

Yet every night,

when she leaves,

the beast returns to itself.

It paces inside my bones.

It tears sleep apart.

It howls at the ceiling

as though the moon itself abandoned it.

And still

when she speaks my name,

the beast kneels.

the beat kneels.

Strange, is it not?

How even creatures born for ruin

still ache to be touched.

How even monsters pray.

How even beasts dream

of resting their terrible heads

against someone’s chest

without being feared.

So the beast waits for her.

Patient as death.

Faithful as a wound.

Under the cathedral of night,

where lonely things learn

that hunger and love

wear the same face.

And I do not let him out.

I do not let him out.

- Roy Multan