Stephanie Smith

Plaything

Stephanie Smith

(with apologies to Salvador Dali)

if it wasn’t for that

damn grasshopper nightmare

I would have stayed right here

but you know how I get scared

and I know we need to be alone

but whenever I try to touch you

my hands are swollen and raw

and there’s nothing to rinse off this rot and shit

no lotion to soothe no pleasures to curl up to

I know you’re feeling the urge to go your own way

please stop your impatience I’ll be back tomorrow

when the grasshoppers go away

Where the Dead Things Go

Stephanie Smith

Before the wind

whisks me off

to the place where

dead things go

I think of you . . .

How we always

go back here—

my tongue in your ear,

legs spread, ready

to give birth to chaos

until your weight

makes other plans

We paint the walls

with ennui

I sketch your face in blood,

a scrap of flesh

in my pocket

so I won’t forget you

when I’m gone

Interpreting the Dream

Stephanie Smith

He had the sloppiness

of a killer leaving

a trail of evidence behind

Perhaps he was lost

in a Freudian nightmare

where every cloud in the sky

was a memory of her breasts

where she sighed

until the sky turned red

and she bled

and bled

and he came

forward

taking off his mask

only to reveal the human behind

Salvation

Stephanie Smith

He exhales the stink

of cognac and the grave

Twilight rising in his eyes

Sweet slumber in his belly

His bladder bleeding

the poetry of the streets

and the slaughter of innocents

in back alleys

He was searching for a sacrifice

A lovely lady

to lay down on a slab

and show her salvation

He was begging for a bride

to be with him

forever in the dark

“Safer”

by Stephanie Smith

Bring me your head

upon a plate

Reincarnate yourself

into something else

Bring me your heart

rolled up in your sleeve

It’s time to come clean

about what you’ve done

Bring me the wind

wrapped up in pretty paper

Let me feel safer

knowing the killer has gone

Thickness

by Stephanie Smith

This distance drives me to such places –

The black lung of a corner bar

The inside of a nightmare

The very marrow of my darkest fears

The air between us is thick

with sickening displays of regret

and apologies we couldn’t sell

I can tell when you’ve had too much to drink

This sickness lets me see

Even the thickest lies which slip from your lips

will never slide past me

Blood and Tears

by Stephanie Smith

This water that quenches my thirst in the night

This blood that rusts my body

This prison of skin, flesh, and memory

This cage made of broken bones and sinew

A madness burns in my veins

I whisper sweet songs of murder

in the minds of the innocent,

drink from the salty tears of the suffering soul

where poems are born

of sweat and brimstone

I make my home inside your words

so I may set us free

Bedtime Stories

by Stephanie Smith

Words turn down for the night,

lost in the sweet syllables of your suffering

Pillows are stuffed with inexplicable pain

We choke on poems and dark refrains,

dreams tucked away in musty basements

Nightmares roam unleashed through savage streets,

hoping to bump into a somnambulist

on her way to salvation

Books remain closed, bound by sinew—

the dreamer’s flesh

Demons dine on broken rhymes

and our screams when the rains come

Skeletons

by Stephanie Smith

Tonight you have your hand in your pocket

There’s a bullet lodged in your throat

It’s ready to explode

He makes you sleep in the closet these days

With all the funeral clothes

All the dresses you’ve donned

For the dearly departed

Like your sister who died when you were four

Kept hidden away with the skeletons

And the skulls of severed heads

Broken limbs of dead relatives

And your secrets who’ve made friends with ghosts

Yearning for the grave

In Dreams She Devours the World

by Stephanie Smith

In dreams she pulls strings

from her pregnant belly,

holds still while a world is unraveled

At night she sups on scarlet mush

and souls that never saw daylight

She sips infinity from a broken glass,

devours the world and its delicate darkness

as flesh becomes tomorrow’s meal

Stephanie Smith is a poet and writer from Scranton, Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared in such publications as PIF Magazine, Strong Verse, The Horror Zine, Underground Voices, and Disturbed Digest. Her first book, a horror novella titled Shade, is currently looking for a publisher and she has begun work on what hopes to be a full-length novel.