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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).

Poet’s Love Song

I see you
yes, you poet
you who lives
behind the misty veil
dwelling in the border
between this world
and a hundred other
shadow worlds

I see you

I see those ink-stained
fingers
that hold your pen
like a lover
that fly across the keyboard
in a torrent
before stopping, hesitating
waiting
for the flow of words to resume

I see the permanent rings
countless cups of coffee
have left on your writing table
the chip in your favorite mug
I see the frayed fabric
on your cuffs
of your favorite writing shirt
the fabric worn thin at your elbows

I see those mesmerizing eyes
that seem to simultaneously
be looking through me
straight into my soul
while studying the cosmos
and gazing inward
all at the same time
I see the contradictions you are
your eyes are haunting
full of knowing
full of pain
full of longing

I see the dark smudges
under your otherworldly eyes
reminders that poets
are night dwellers
insomniacs
who haunt the still hours
who understand the depth
the texture of darkness
who can capture the qualities
the acoustics of silence

I see the way
words spill out of
your sensuous mouth
like pearls, like diamonds
beautiful treasures
embedded with your tears
your sweat, your blood

yes poet
I see you
you who makes me fall
in love with language
over and over
whose words
stab me in the heart
punch me in the gut
jangle my nerves
bathe me in your radiance
soothe my weary soul
take me on a journey
I didn’t even know
I wanted to go on

and you are beautiful

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.

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