i. The Beast // ii. The Devourer
Woman, Beast, God.
Image credit: Walton Ford, Gleipnir, 2012 (cropped). Link here
i. The Beast
The beast will always bite
the hand that feeds it.
Will she ever learn?
Always craving the lick of the tongue –
the clamp of the jaw.
To be devoured is to be loved.
Its serpentine tongue envelops her —
a noose—
a promise, a prelude to ruin.
With a press of teeth like a premonition,
a measure of a meal before being eaten.
A lamb bowing its head to the butcher—
hands starved, white lilies,
splaying open for a touch of sunlight.
Bent like wilting leaves to accommodate the jaw further.
More than submission, more than entrapment,
something darker, something more dangerous–
Devotion.
Willing, waiting, wanting.
The mouth receives,
enveloping her screams in fever-wet heat—
breathless and gasping from the stench of damp earth,
the musk, the blood, the guts—
sickly sweet as rot.
Fang tears her apart.
Tongue slices through her like a lover.
Sinew cracks open,
marrow is chewed to pulpy paste—
The space between the next bite and breath a razor's width.
No mercy,
no easy kill,
only suffering—
tender and obscene.
Like an oath,
a sacrificial goat to the slaughter.
Mistress.
Sacrifice.
Mother.
A holy altar full of sin.
Sacrilegious.
Carnage and prayer under the skin—
a declaration of love and an omen of death,
stitched in oozing crimson and tears.
Like a fly to honey.
Like fate. Like magnetism.
The hound licks with a salty tongue
at wound and split skin.
Hungry—
not with teeth, with hands,
cradling her jaw, sharpened claws—
Give me more,
give me more.
Hungry as a beast.
Hungry as a woman.
Not cruelty–
Nature.
There is serenity in ignorance.
Her blood and breath meet in an exquisite ache.
Pleasure and pain intertwine like twin snakes
as she remains—
Feeding the beast because it must be fed.
Animalistic. Ritualistic.
The beast will continue feeding until it is fed.
To be loved is to be broken.
To be touched is to be torn open.
To be known is to be devoured.
Bite me, she does not say.
Bite me, she thinks.
Bite me, I am yours.
She returns, as always—
not just woman, but offering.
Knees kissing dirt,
breath caught in ritual.
Giving in to the waiting maw,
prayer wrapped in flesh.
She sighs.
She bleeds.
She does not weep.
The hunger is endless.
A cycle, a hymn carved in flesh.
She offers her throat next—
the willing altar,
mouth parted in benediction.
She sighs.
She bleeds.
She does not weep.
Image credit: Matteo Moni, pack renegade (2024) 100x150cm,Oil on canvas. Link here.
ii. The Devourer
Hunger is the god
Watching her be eaten—
swallowed, consumed.
Watching, waiting, wanting—
The woman ripped open at the seams.
The tongue wrapped around the throat,
The fangs in her belly.
Ribs cracking as beast gnaws on bone.
But still—
there is something teeth cannot reach.
Something moving beneath her skin.
A shiver.
A stir.
A summoning.
The hunger strikes inside her—
Grinding,
Igniting—
a match lit aflame.
She is all skin, muscle, vessel,
marrow, bone—
Something ancient.
Something desperate, sentient.
Gnawing at her from the inside out—
a god with wet hands,
awakened,
Clawing and climbing,
Clinging on to her larynx, her throat,
Coating the tongue in desire—
a warning, a prophecy.
She gags.
She grins.
She splits.
She is all fur and filth,
piss and musk,
the perfume of the earth
after it’s fed.
Coat of the phoenix.
Something unfed—
Something wild, something starving.
Her teeth ache.
Her gums bloom red.
Tongue swells—
sacred and swollen,
slick with salt and spit.
The mouth remembers
what the prayers buried.
She licks her wrist,
Feels the familiar exquisite ache —
blood, body,
hers.
A creature on all fours.
Nails split into claws.
Breath comes ragged—
Like a dog’s.
Like a god’s.
What happens if she bites first?
Would she taste herself in its mouth?
Would she finally be full?
Steam hisses from her throat.
A fog of meat and rot.
Tongue touching earth—
Not to kneel.
To stalk.
The hound waits,
Watching her, watching itself,
its yellow eyes gleaming
like twin moons
over a pit of graves.
It does not snarl.
It bows.
Recognition is not gentle.
They lunge—
mouths first.
Teeth on teeth,
skin against snarl.
They collide like comets,
Blood scattering the sky in prophecy and fate
Scarring the earth in its wake.
She bites.
It laughs.
It tears.
She howls.
They become a knot of sinew,
of need,
of gnashing mouths and slapping limbs.
Tongues twisting like serpents,
Like roots from the same tree—
a double helix of sin and hunger.
She tastes herself in its mouth.
It tastes itself in hers.
There is no end to the devouring.
She bites its throat.
The apotheosis
Tearing.
Ripping.
Sucking.
Blood baptised,
running in rivers
down her chest,
between her legs.
The hound does not die.
It sings through her.
Tongue, stomach, loins.
She drinks until her belly blooms—
ripe with muscle,
heat,
Divinity.
Woman.
Beast.
She is both.
She is neither.
She is becoming.
She sighs.
She bleeds.
She does not weep.
She reigns.
She howls.
She feeds.
Eat or be eaten.
The beast grins.
Image credit: Norbertine von Bresslern-Roth, Rauferei (Brawl). Link here.
Absolutely incredible. I love this so so much.
Amazing work. I love when poetry slices through flesh and bone. and this certainly did that.