Pseudopod · Escape Artists Foundation

PseudoPod 1018: The Polyamorous Heart of Death

February 27, 2026·27 min·1 clip

Death speaks in first person: 'I have loved the unlovable — murderers and sadists alike have succumbed to my seduction, to my smile.'

The warning comes first. Kat Day names Pseudopod as adult, disturbing, and human-made, then gives the author, narrator, host, and production credits. The story moves to Alex, who looks at Olivia's body and almost instantly treats the gap between the woman he knew and the corpse in front of him as material. She must witness him. That need curdles into his private art logic, where love starts sounding like a winding sheet and consent becomes a problem he can talk his way around. His thinking is horribly neat. Olivia's death gets called a tragedy, then becomes something he imagines as larger than both of them. The room keeps pushing back. Heat, smell, waste, decay, blue shadows, and a dusty candle labeled New Love make the studio feel like it is judging him. Nothing stays romantic for long. Even the sweet vanilla turns thick and false, perfume laid over what the body already says. Alex keeps changing the light. Each change feels less like craft and more like refusal, as if composition might let him handle death without admitting what he has done to Olivia. The framing helps. M. Lopez de Silva is introduced through gothic horror, poetry, art, Los Angeles, and transmasc authorship, so the story lands in a living literary line, not just a shock setup. The anthology's title and Neutral Milk Hotel inspiration come back near the end, where mortality becomes theme and farewell. Pseudopod lets the rot stay in the room while Alex tries to rename it as mutual benefit, art history, and romance. The horror is accusatory. It watches domination put on devotion's clothes, then lets the stink spread.

As heard by us

A dead lover, a stifling studio, and an obsession that turns devotion into desecration.

Pseudopod 1018, The Polyamorous Heart of Death, stays close to a dead lover, a paint-slick studio, and the slow way consent slips into obsession. Kat Day hosts, and Jordan Carella carries the story with a steady, uneasy edge.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

When love, grief, desire, and a decaying body start arguing in the same studio.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Pseudopod