Visions of Victor Frankenstein
stalking and hunting me through
bitter snows and
whipping winds
plague my waking and sleeping hours.
Pried-open eyes watch my creator
burn carefully harvested organs
required to recreate myself –
reducing desperation into
charred,
chastised,
chrysalid flesh
tumbling towards the smoldering scrapheap of Hell.
Desire to defend my worth
bleeds out
against His knife-like words
biting,
ripping,
tearing
their way through cells and sinew –
demonstrating such a body will prove
wretched,
monstrous,
abhorrent
to the world around me.
Warnings from His sharpened tongue
strike my eardrums –
reciting recurring traits of
previous, failed experiments like me:
suffocating,
blacking out,
overdosing
on syringes of toxic substances –
awakening to sickening acts
triggered
by their own hand or mouth.
But shall I be led to believe potential
future transgressions
give others the right to
prematurely banish me, or
bury me, forgotten,
beneath the frigid, unforgiving earth?
Hack axes against my foundation?
Throw stones through shattered bones?
Relentlessly, He ignores my
sleepless,
scrawled,
screaming
reformations to my body’s blueprints
to be seen as something far greater:
a safe, separate model of Man
frantically erasing its
primitive form
until no trace remains.
He shakes his head at the
alienated disturbance before Him –
neither resembling Adam’s seed
nor the egg of Eve:
my biblical inaccuracies enough to justify
power-clad policies,
pitiless preaching’s,
piercing pitchforks
propelled my way –
dangerously unaware
how a lazily angled mirror shall reveal
the true face of a monster,
rushing reckless weaponry
straight for His own rotted heart.
Reference: Shelley, M., 1818. Frankenstein.
Jay Best is a member of the LGBTQIA+ community currently completing a BA in Creative Writing and Interactive Design. They are an avid fiction and poetry writer who enjoys reading, gaming, and photography in their free time, with future plans surrounding publication, cinematography, and video game development.