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Stephanie Smith
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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.

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