Hiding in my stomach
where no one can find her
is a beast.

She's a shapeshifter, this monster.
Sometimes her skin is leathery
and membranous,
and wings stretch where her arms used to be.

Sometimes she's a mass of fur and
horns and talons.
Sometimes she's just a fog of darkness
leaking into the world.

But she never lets me forget
that she's there.
When I look into the mirror, I see her.
I'll touch my face
and find it utterly human,
and yet my reflection is a leviathan.
A demon.
She used to terrify me,
make me sweat and shake from fear.

But I've come to accept
that this is what I am.
A monster
whose teeth are stained with blood
of mine and others.
I can never brush them clean.