Happy Valentine's Day

Poetry, Women, and Monsters

In honor of today’s holiday, I’m sharing a poem I wrote a few years ago, previously published in the HWA Poetry Showcase, Vol X: “Bride, Woman, Body.” This piece was inspired by Frankenstein’s bride, a woman created to be [insert subservient role here]. She had no name, no choice, no options.

Her response? Horror. Refusal. Shock.

Their response? A death sentence.

I started my career in poetry writing about asylums and antique medical practices, so I wanted to put one of horror’s most infamous couples in a more realistic setting to illustrate what her story is really about.

subtext, subtext, subtext.

Welcome to the psych ward, friends.

Elsa Lanchester, this one is for you. xo

Bride, Woman, Body
by Stephanie M. Wytovich

Stiff like the white sheet draped across my chest,
I breathe in the violence of courtship, a virgin 
in this new world. Unable to rest, I swallow
the name of monsters, their hands a butcher,
a tailor, a doctor.

	Patient is hysteric, emotional
	strap her down. 

I felt them take my legs, wipe the blood
from my mouth, my body a stitched
canvas, a gaping wound. I died 
crying, was reborn screaming, my
eyes electric, two bright moons.

	Patient is panicked, resisting,
	restrain her.

They created me like Eden, a red apple 
begging to be bit, a rib used in his image,
submissive, obedient, these things I am
not. I refuse his hand, hiss a curse made 
of “no,” my choice my undoing, kindling
to his whims.

	Patient is rejecting her role,
	burn her at once.