Dripping

It's a beast
It's not man or woman
Not human or animal
But somehow it is all of them

A dripping monster
With talons and claws where hands
Where paws should have been

It reaches out, nails sharpened
To an agonizing edge
And cuts through, slowly
Too slowly, too painfully
Through my flesh

Right through guts and sinew
Gripped in its clenched fist
It pulls away with what I once was

I am left with a gaping ragged hole
Dripping clags of tissue and reason
Blood and purpose where I am forever changed.