Author: poetryfest

Dr. Boutros notes
how you braided yellow beads, strips of fox fur,
and dried primrose into your hair,
waxing the tips with pine resin,
trying to accentuate the steep curve of your twisted back,
evidence of a god’s touch, but
according to him, scoliosis.
On an auspicious day,
or a radiocarbon dated period,
you delivered questions
carved on turtle shells and ox bones–
the answers, the future, foretold
in the rhythmic convulsions
of your copper painted limbs,
the pooling puddles of your blood.
The carved museum plaque
only states est. D.O.D, 2 BC.
You dined on burnt griddle cake, mistletoe pollen,
and lamb since the beginning of the plague.
Your stomach contents contain traces
of rare seeds, inconsistent
with the carefully researched diets,
evidence of a ritual.
He wonders if
you crawled through the bog, sinking
into the spongy moss,
peat crusting and staining your braids.
Did you have the scent of hope?
He’ll photograph how your spine ridges
pressed patterns into the mud.
“She died a triple death.”
In archeology forums, he argues
that you prepared for the final moment,
the blade slicing through your neck, a cord corrugates,
a skull cracking blow, pain—and then
gurgling gasps, wet.
He prays that it was enough– your body for the survival of others.

I was asleep, enjoying my slow starvation, welcoming death and its sweet embrace.
Asleep when I heard him enter my territory.
Felt him slip past my guards and slide along my webs.
I was asleep.

I was awake as I watched him look for me.
Watched as he waded in pools of blood and through tall crystalline formations.
Climbed stalagmites and ducked under stalactites. Looking, endlessly looking for me.
I was awake.

I was hungry when he found the back of my lair.
Feeling along the wall in the dark, unable to find his way out.
Turning in circles as he tried to find me, the entrance, anything in the abyss he wandered into.
I was hungry.

I was blinded as he found a torch, dropped long ago by a being I no longer remember.
Using it to find his way around, he burned and broke my webs, my ties to this realm.
He cornered me in the crystals, bouncing the light around the cave.
I was blinded.

I was full when the torch slipped from his hand, dropping into a stagnant pool.
Dug my fangs into his body, reveling in his scream as I dragged him into my lair.
Drank his blood and consumed his body.
I was full.

The kitchen was filled with joy and laughter,
But my hands were stuck by my side.
No one seemed to notice the people,
Though I did, out of the corner of my eye.

They glared at me. Watched me intently;
Should I dare to turn my head?
For every time I tried to do so,
In seconds, they had fled.

By the look of their height, I think they were ten,
But their faces were blank like a shadow.
They didn’t have eyes or a nose or a mouth,
I think that I heard them laugh though.

I thought that I was going crazy,
Or maybe I was just young.
I debated telling an adult,
But instead, I bit my tongue.

I sat by my parents, and tried to ignore them,
But my mother whispered in my ear,
“Relax my darling, don’t be afraid,
I see them too, my dear.”

I am not me. There is something else inside. What you see, well that’s just a Halloween mask askew, over a face that used to be mine.

A half made peanut butter and jelly sandwich naps upon a cutting board. A ripe red tomato slice of blood pools beside it. The hour is weak. The flashing lights from the television pulse loudly, throbbing through the cluttered living spaces that now lay lifeless. The Gods turn their heads. They always do.

The new me, that is not me, what was once me, peers through two eye slots like a horse in blinders. I hear the sound of someone else breathing, a jagged knife through pumpkin skin, inside this mask. This thing that was once me, framed in windowpane, soaks in the horror show. Take caution sleeping towns and slumbering cities. Lock your doors. There’s a psychopath on the loose. The something else that was once in me is now the something else inside you. This
silicone mask that gripped my once upon a time face, now crawls over you. Through two eye slots, the you that was once you soaks in the horror show. The Gods turn their heads. They always do.

-Alex Gust

The waxing moon lay in a shroud
Behind a wall of ashen cloud
It was now All Hallows Eve
When the dead rise to grieve
What drove me to this haunted place
Shunned by my fellow human race?
My need to know what lay beyond,
When we break our Earthly bond
On the headstone the inscription read
“HERE LIES ONE WHO EATS THE DEAD”
As I knocked upon that stone,
I prayed what rose was flesh and bone
I shivered madly-held my breath
For my chance to speak with death
I heard a voice call out my name
“I see your soul! Why you came!
You long to hear of Heaven’s heights,
Angel song and blessed sights.
On this night, you’ve roused a fiend
Who feasts on those life has demeaned
I eat the living and the dead
I’m the thing that all men dread!”
My mind cried out in fresh alarm
Why had I dared to tempt such harm?
This ghoul will eat me limb by limb
What madness made me call to him?
My soul will perish in this quest
And never find eternal rest
The face was tattered, rotting skin
The ravaged eyes had sunken in.
Blindly I ran toppling stones
Heard lost cries of rattling bones
A streetlamp lit the way ahead
To lead me from this place of dread.
Each night I quake at midnight’s toll,
Chimes that haunt my cursed soul
For the fiend I woke from its tomb
Will now deliver to me, my doom.

in bed this morning
I lie awake

too tired
to fight the day

too scared
to face the night

I dream
with eyes wide open

of things
the brave dare not fear

and the things
that make nightmares sleep

« Les Choses qui Font Dormir les Cauchemars »

dans le lit ce matin
je allongé éveillé

trop fatigué
pour lutter contre le jour

trop effrayé
pour affronter la nuit

je rêve
avec les yeux grands ouverts

de choses
les courageux n’osent pas craindre

et des choses
qui font dormir les cauchemars

I stared at my reflection, exhausted, full of rage.
Placing my hand upon the mirror, I begged to end the pain.
“Perhaps I may be of some help, and we may both be assuaged.”
I was startled to hear the little voice, it must only be in my brain
“Look ahead, for I am real, at least while you are near.”
I looked into the mirror, And lo, it was myself who spoke.
My own voice filled the room while my lips held still with fear.
Within the mirror’s smooth glass, my reflection awoke.

“Hello my twin” the mirror said in a high and hopeful voice,
“Tell me what troubles you so.”
I groaned “Oh!
How I envy you, you know not my strife!
For I am burdened with horrid choice! All throughout my life!”

I held my head within my hands and sobbed again once more.
My reflection asked:
“And why should choice cause such pain? And make you feel so poor?”
I looked at her through bleary eyes and said through muffled sobs,
“Choices only bring me fear and dread.
For when I make one incorrect, it haunts me until I feel dead.”
“I would not know, for I make none. Reflecting you is my only job.”
“For that my friend you’re lucky.” I stated in reply
“I could say the same to you, and yet you still cry.”
I looked into the mirror and asked “whatever could you mean?”
“You have the gift of life” it said “without you I cannot be seen.
I cannot choose to feel joy or despair; the only time I do,
Is when we face each other, and I’m forced to copy you.
And even then I know not why, we may laugh or cry.
I know not the reason for anything I do”

I wiped the tears from my face, and stared into my own eyes.
“Oh how I envy you” I said, “free will is only a burden to human lives.”
The reflection stared back and said, “Perhaps we should swap places,
I can claim your human life, while you reflect my faces.”

I reached out toward the mirror, as another hand emerged.
I felt myself grow flat, as my skin was purged.
I looked upon my own flesh, who laughed with joy and glee.
“Oh how great it is to finally be free!”
She moved her new flesh hand, causing me to do the same.
“I shall make our choices now, to spare you from your pain.”
I felt the same joy she showed, yet I could not not reply.
My reflection turned and walked away, as our relief made us cry.
I walked toward the mirror’s frame, and saw nothing ahead.
I stepped into the void, and felt a great dread.

The next time I saw her, it was not quite as clear.
I was walking within the windows of old shops by the pier.
Next to me were several others, reflecting the busy street.
Repeating all the actions of those who walked in the heat
Some giggled, some cried, some spoke, some walked, and some sat.
Some wore long flowing dresses, while others wore large sun hats.

I walked again into the darkness, wondering where it would spit me out.
I emerged distorted, feeling rounder as I looked up at myself.
My reflection picked me up and shoved me in her mouth.
She put me back then repeated again and again.
Eating as she spoke with somebody else,
I felt my lips repeat her but I knew not what I said or felt

The next time I emerged I was lying down in bed,
Within the white glass lamp that sat just near her head.
“For years I’ve envied you,” she said as I mouthed back to her.
“I’ve hated you for having what I did not, for making me suffer.
Now I am finally free, while you are trapped just like me.”
I wanted to scream, to beg her to let me out,
But I had lost all control over my own mouth.

In the corner of the museum’s foggy hall,

Mannequins stood on display surrounded by caution tape
three mannequin heads peeking down the hall, their faces twisted,
eyes blank yet watchful, frightfully captivating,
Each smile was a grim echo of something forgotten.

Do you see us? they whisper,
The secrets we hold, the stories untold,
those who dared to gaze too long,
now part of our eerie collection.

Once, they flourished on a grand display,
where glamour masked dark ambitions,
but now they linger in the shadows,
a siren’s call to the curious and brave.

One evening, a wanderer approached,
drawn by the heads’ haunting gaze,
What lies beneath those forced smiles?
Their stares daunting, I could feel their souls.

Unfazed, the wanderer reached their hand out. To feel the skin-like material on their faces.

The heads shook. a chilling gasp,
Stay with us, dear friend,
and let us show you our world.

In an instant, the air grew thick,
and the wanderer felt their skin start to crawl,
as the heads twisted into wicked grins,
eyes gleaming with a hunger for souls.

You wanted to see, didn’t you? they sang,
Now you’re one of us, a figure in our play,
lost among the whispers of those before,
a new face in our cursed image.

With a final shiver, the room fell still,
the heads stood silent, now even more alive,
waiting for the next curious soul,
to step closer and join their eerie collection on display.

All is right, good,
All is happy, calm.

And then bam!
A dagger goes straight through her back
To her heart
And stabs her in the deep seeded soul.

Blinded by the lights and blindsided.
Young and naive,
A daisy.

But by the end,
The dagger
Cut off the daisy petals,
One by one.