rime of the pit beast

rime of the pit beast

every night I dream his fate

his appetite: pain

the rats: his food or companions

the moon: a god

the pit beast roves a circle  tight

pacing pentacle points watching weeks bleed through bars in blue rectangles

he’s hungry   or

unsure whether he is hungry or not

he eats

only when the king decides

someone must suffer   or

the pit beast decides

to suffer a rat

if he is hungry   someone is dying

that is what I know

the king’s subjects live in fear

they say

the pit beast was once a man

a poor man

but handsome   and clever with words

with hands that could fell a tree or cup a cheek   gently

and best of all   kind

the king hated the pit beast

because the king had so much wealth

and was still so despised

while the pit beast was beloved

by so many   despite having   so few things

so the king threw him into an oubliette

at the bottom of the pit he hoped to die

but instead he

      lived

and when the king told him that the scraps he’d eaten

were pieces of people he knew

what could the pit beast do except become a pit beast?

the scraps got bigger

more obvious

a human hand

a foot

a face

I watched him from the lip his weeping and trembled

dreading him

tonight

the king threw me into the pit

I fell

down mud colder than a king’s love

but he was there

to catch me in hungry arms

so hungry they devoured

me

and

at the very bottom  in the dark   I learned

he was a trans man like me

when I woke up spell broken I wept knowing he wasn’t free

yet

every night I dream his escape

his appetite: pain

the rats: our food or companions

the moon: a door we’re learning how to open

M. Lopes da Silva (he/they/she) is a non-binary trans masc author, artist, poet, and critic from Los Angeles. He writes pulp and poetry. Dread Stone Press recently published his first novelette What Ate the Angels - a queer vore sludgefest that travels beneath the streets of Los Angeles starring a non-binary ASMR artist and their vore-loving girlfriend - in Volume Two of the Split Scream series. Weirdpunk Books is scheduled to release his collection of heartbreaking and exquisite queer horror stories, Infinity Mathing at the Shore and Other Disruptions, in Spring of 2024.

Copyright © 2024 by M. Lopes da Silva

Published by Orion's Beau