Fruit of a mad apple, toxicity in quantity, subtle beauty in a singular pale bud, flourishing beneath its own shadow, close to the earth and broad in breadth, nourished by the forest floor, fed upon by soft screams, the decomposing flesh allowing the facade of a split ovum, opening a portal of firelight, the combustion of my emergence, my ether birth, a beast of inscrutable tendencies, a landscape of premonitions and skeletons, I step forward from my nethersphere into a world of sunlight that warms with goose flesh and peaked nipples, cognizant of a hunger that’s sated with wide-eyed touch, impulses taunted by scent, whispers in grass raise a need, from the lowslung moon he leaps, rabbit run and I give chase, feral instincts and teeth, my first mortal meal of cardiac rhythm and feverish blood, the stain to my hands highlighting the inborn truth of my making, I’ve no origins in eden, nothing there blooms my species, I’m of the poison garden, my existence is of intrigue and ruin, I bewitch and rob of breath, whoever wills the kiss of my ichorstained lips, a suicide of curious attraction, a design of incurable venom, I’m given a life just out of arm’s reach, a world of my own spinning, a body giving bowing and swaying to every storming wind, pounding rain, harsh mannerisms that strengthen my stature and resolve, allowing me growth in the wait, for the knowledgeable, one appreciative of my monstrous nature, who speaks my supposeds into truth, calls my possibilities into existence

E.A. O'Connell