psst — the monsters are all in evidence over here
many with their sights on you, can you not see them?
maybe they don’t wear chaos like your command
or ugliness as your specification; maybe in love
they can’t afford to show the truth; some have been known
to flatter relentlessly the passing beauty; or even
to dress up as their own negation, pretending tools
or fancy chairs or helpless little girls; and many
renouncing love or beauty altogether; but nobody
is sorry; nobody knows that everybody
is swallowed up by someone by the end; and nobody
is more monstrous than mercy, or more self-same

still; if you want it darker, we can totally kill the flame
but the poet will kill it for us in six or seven lines

//

xox