The Beast

I suffer from the beast. The large, gluttonous monster that eats all energy and motivation. It feeds a dissatisfaction with reality and begs for less always. And to do less takes and costs more and more. The beast is great and I am its keeper. I feed and nourish it, and in return it hits like a drug. I know my faults and I know society frowns upon me for cultivating it. And yet it only continues to grow. The fault is my own. The beast is my own to kill. But I fear for the empty house that will remain, I fear for the unsatisfied addiction. Most of all, I fear not retaliation, I know the beast will not fight, I fear the act--the killing--the slow drawn out struggling of a thing already so devoid of breath. And yet, into the gullet I go.

I often find the beast clinging to me as I go about my day. I visit landmarks, indulge in pleasantries, and engage in discourse. In these momentary joys I find reprieve from its oppressive reign and grasp at the air outside the cage. And then I turn to my pockets, step to the side, find momentary silence--and there I find the beast waiting patiently, wonderfully, effortlessly. I stare blankly and the beast smiles back. "You've debts to pay" it says to me, leaned back in utter depravity and motionless confidence. Those little reminders, itches at the back of my skull, invasions of privacy at my highest, takes little energy and yet is of great effort to the beast, the beast who lingers. The beast who knows it will be fed, the beast who perhaps wonders at the desperate stupidity of this man in search of his next hit.

The beast provides no recompense. The beast feels no guilt, returns no favour. The beast can't feel these things, can't provide any source of peace other than scruples of dopamine once satiated. It is consistent, inhumanly unrelenting, and drives me in directions I find only snaps of joys from, retrospectively shaming my asinine, mindless patterns. I do this all positioned with my hand in the mouth of the beast. I judge from a place of aligned malignancy, tumorous masses impinging on my every vital. What other choice do I have? It grows and grows, and with it a disappearance of all things I once thought myself proud, consuming and displacing them together. I look to the beast and beg for a solution, a fix, a stop to the insanity, and it only stares back. Its eyes pierce me. It is providing a solution. The beast looks at the problem.

One day, a light so blinding arrived and flooded the beast with its poison. Once my eyes adjusted, I looked to find my beast, but it could was gone. The light had flooded away what once might have been there. And for a time, the light shined through, and it was there I cultivated what I had lost.

I soon realized the foolishness my faith in the light had held for me. As the light faded like it had done before in spite of my reluctance to remember it, I was left in the same place, with little more food, new growths, new hopes. I smiled--"this surely would last forever, as each previous passing light had been from another source, from some other flawed thing" and I went on glowing. Perhaps I had become the light, perhaps I could grow with myself. Perhaps this love would snowball into a life fulfilled in itself. This lasted some time.

In fact, I had been glowing like never before. This radiant light was exactly what the beast needed. I needed to be blind so it could gnaw at the fat I'd forgotten about, the tendons I'd not since used, the viscera I'd developed times over with new flesh. With each bite, each itch I'd ignored, the luminescence faded. The beast fostered itself evermore.

When I finally awoke in a pot of boiling water, I looked to my left hand--on the switch; I looked to my right hand--on the lighter. I looked to the beast--smiling at the problem. "Come now, can't have you dying." And so I jumped out, following the beast's commands. "Let me clean you up," it said, and I started ripping off each tendril of cooked flesh from my legs, peeled bits of skin from my arms, and looked blank in confusion. I thought there was more to take, I thought I had everything to give. The beast shook its head. Never enough, always knowing how much there was to take. Never clever, always knowing I closed my eyes during each dismemberment. Never kind, only providing creative comforts. Never gone, always lingering.

I find pleasure with the beast. The large, generous creature eats all worries and cures all unhappiness. It feeds a satisfaction with reality and begs for more. And to do more takes and costs less and less. The beast is great and I am its keeper. I feed and nourish it, and in return it hits like a drug. I know my strengths and I know society lauds me for cultivating it. It only continues to grow. The glory is my own. The beast is my own to nurture. But I fear for the empty house without it, I fear for loneliness. Most of all, I fear not retaliation, I know the beast is gentle and kind, I fear the act--the feeding--the generous provisions for a thing so deserving of peace. With joy, into the gullet I go.