I wrote this to explore how we change in a relationship, how it isn’t always healthy or best for us—or necessarily consensual. We give pieces of ourselves away, we have pieces taken, we cut ourselves down to nothing in the name of love, and it is both a horror and a revelation.

I used to have this illustrated version of Beauty and the Beast when I was little, which more often than not I used to retrace the drawings than reread the story, but I do remember it was my favourite version of the tale because it reserved several beautiful pages for the scene with the rose theft.

I was inspired by my body, and bodies in general. What it means for a body to exist in spaces that find it unworthy, unholy. And how sometimes, we also have to carry our ancestry, our birthplace, in these very bodies. So we have bodies weighted with history and ancestry, but still found sacrilegious. How does one reconcile that?

he poem was inspired by the unending struggle of the world and its continuous demand in our blood, where we must keep striving to stay afloat. In the last part of the poem, I demonstrated how at that point I was okay with much the world has to offer me, and was willing to not keep spending my blood.

“Tropical Fish” is a relic from my childhood and mostly true. I had an aquarium in my bedroom, and my dad and I spent a lot of time staring at those fish.

I first wrote this poem back in 2020. I’ve been a lifelong fan of horror and was helping a friend start to get to know the genre. One of our conversations centered on just how many different ways a horror character can be haunted, and thus this poem was born.