_{the monster}

“Exists only to be read” (Cohen)

(like any text, the monster requires an audience, even if the gaze trained upon its form is inflected with dread, not love; at least you’re looking now)

“Signifies something other than itself: it is always a displacement, always inhabits the gap between the time of upheaval that created it and the moment into which it is received, to be born again” (Cohen)

(live under the bed. behind your eye sockets. in the blood
staining your mouth)