The beast in you
paces back and forth
in a cage of gristle and bone,
vein and nerve,
muscle and gut.

It is incessantly
irate with you
for the way
you keep it prisoner.

Yet
when it escapes,
as it does from time,
it does not attack its jailer.

Instead it takes
its anger out,
so violently,
so bloodily,
on strangers.

And then,
when it's done,
it slips inside you
once again.
It even hands you back
the key.

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