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Off With It

by Pratyusha Nagavarapu
(Manipal, India)

So I conjure it up. I discovered that I make it up.

In my head, as the demons take me over I realize this face was wrong, and it was me;

I drew it wrong.

This isn't the face of my monster, and neither is this, nor this

and definitely not this.

Deconstructing it, I realize that the face matters, and it doesn't,

and then it isn't the blood it spilt, nor the war it caused

and it doesn't stop at the pain it caused, it is so much more

so who is it? where is it? what is it? is it--

what is it, and there is black, it doesn't say, it doesn't answer back

and it has no smell, nothing to it but this unknown hole, a hole I fill

to my surprise there is me, for sure, and what else? where am I? What is here

and I can't see, and it isn't. It simply isn't. It isn't there.

So I conjure it up. Because I can't see it, because I can't taste it

I make it up as I go, this monster under my bed.