Lusus Naturae, Ariel Moniz

Also appears in Voyager Magazine

Is it in jest that we are secured

by the mortal coil to the insidious

machine of the heart, that beats

and eats us away, even there

beneath the creaking floorboards

and in the sacred hall of dreams?

We are a rather frightful thing, humanity.

What can one say to articulate the infection,

the abyss of rationale and bone and flesh,

this, diseased thought planted by a trickster

of deformity and revelry?

Oh how we love our Gods and long to be them.

We yearn for this without knowing it,

our minds thick with it in the same way

a child’s tongue swells with language

before they discover how to wield it,

and we too must accept the disjointed

and troublesome business of it all—

by brewing ambrosia from what we can,

by wrestling our own monstrosity in the night,

by piecing ourselves wholly together.

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Ariel K. Moniz is a lifelong writer and voracious reader. Her work can be found in Blood Bath Literary Zine, The Raven Review, Pussy Magic, and Vamp Cat Magazine, among others. She is currently writing her first novel and poetry collection. You can visit her at kissoftheseventhstar.home.blog