I am King
My mind is a machine, making monsters
But I am not a monster.
I am the landlord of fears,
And my creations collect rent from tenants
In the dark hours of the night.
But I am not a monster.
I simply twist and coil sentences into barbs,
Hooking the flesh of
Vulnerable imagination;
My strings of words sink into the inky dark lake of the reader’s mind,
Enticing them to take a bite.
But I am not a monster.
I simply cast the line,
And set the bait,
Laid neatly across the cover of the books
My horrors dwell in,
Like a clown, hiding in a sewer,
Waiting to feast on children’s fear.
But I am not a monster.
I, too, fear my creations.
I cower in the dark, waiting for family pets to rise from the grave
Of my subconscious,
Expecting each waking hour to begin in
Wretched Derry.
My wife always asks me,
“Stephen, why do you sleep with a light on?”
Did Frankenstein’s Monster not eventually turn on his creator?
Jonah Chudzik