Frankenstein is the Doctor

It’s meant to be my grandfather, yet 
his mountainous, sturdy shoulders are 
collapsed, caved-in. His hands, coarse
and warm as shifting desert sands, lay
limp and frigid against a harsh white 
sheet; and his eyes, which I know to 
be as blue as a brilliant sea, remain 
hidden from this abysmal life—
from me. Whatever this is, 

it isn’t him.
He never had flies harmonize with 
the shrill cries of ravenous birds 
hovering above his head, keeping time 
to a beating—not living—heart.
Worms never wriggled their way into 
the thin skin of his inner wrist, indulging 
in the ichor oozing through stark, 
sluggish veins. He didn’t have a snake 
for a tongue, one that slithered past 
his lips, stretched the sides of his 
esophagus to burrow its way into his 
lungs, stealing the stale air there.
What a cruel existence.

Frankenstein unplugs the creature,
begging it breathes on its own.

It does not.

Tayleigh Folden

Tayleigh Folden is a senior at Kent State University
on the Stark campus. They will be graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in English and hope to go to graduate school to one day become a professor. Tayleigh enjoys horror in any shape or form, both writing and consuming. When they aren’t freaking people out with their stories and poetry, they can be found watching scary movies in their basement with their cat Yoshi cuddled close.