The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: Darker Objects by Christine E. Ray and Friends

This selection, chosen by guest editor Kirsten Kowalewski, is from Darker Objects by Christine E. Ray and Friends (Indie Blu(e) Publishing 2023).

Frankenstein; or, the New Prometheus

stitched carefully together
from odd parts
of other women
you preferred me to be
you recklessly called forth
roaring thunder
flashes of lightning
that wracked through
my body
electric agony igniting a spark
of independent life
I rose from the table reborn
something new
something other
you gazed upon me,
your creation,
not with love
not with compassion
but with revulsion
with horror
you had longed for the
perfect rag doll to pose
to toy with…
we both knew
the moment
my mismatched eyes
met yours

I was not she

Christine E. Ray lives outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A former Managing Editor of Sudden Denouement Publications, she co-founded Indie Blu(e) Publishing with Kindra M. Austin in September 2018. Ray is author of Composition of a Woman and The Myths of Girlhood. Her writing has also been featured in As The World Burns: Writers and Artists Reflect on a World Gone Mad, SMITTEN This Is What Love Looks Like, We Will Not Be Silenced : The Lived Experience of Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault Told Powerfully Through Poetry, Prose, Essay, and Art, Anthology Volume I: Writings from the Sudden Denouement Literary Collective, Swear to Me (Nicholas Gagnier), and All the Lonely People (Nicholas Gagnier).

Kirsten Kowalewski has a master’s degree in library science and a specialist’s certificate in school media services for grades K-12. She reads widely. and is the editor for horror and dark fiction review website Monster Librarian. This is her third time curating for The Wardrobe.