Stephanie Wytovich

MARTYR

Strangle me with sweet grass,

shove crucifixes down my throat,

I am a clenched fist refusing

baptism, the words of men

a bloodied egg on my plate.

WOMAN AS A EULOGY

A murder of crows rests beneath

sleepless eyes, a visual demand for silence,

this the flock of death notes and mourning,

I come to the page as widow, the bruising

in my mouth an open invitation to my wounds:

please, swallow me whole,

digest me like the sickness I am.

I’ve stuffed diary pages in my bones,

these trauma bonds a book of weeping sores,

my body the first chapter to a memoir

made of ghosts. Look behind the coffins

filled with flowers, underneath the floorboard

covered in layers of whisper-worn screams:

I beg of you, read my story,

sing my pain with the choir blood of angels.

It’s been six years but six minutes,

this practice of choking on typewriter keys,

of mending white dresses I’ll never

get to wear, my voice a carving board

for sigils, each vocal cord stained ink,

soaked twice in half-strung hexes and rage:

I promise you, the forest ate my diamond,

devoured me whole, this poison that I am.

THE CRONE CONFESSIONS

When I dream about swallowing my teeth,

I often wake up hungry. I wonder

if it has something to do

with the way the moon

watches me at night, how it

glues itself to my window,

tonguing the glass

like a hungry wolf.

Confession: on Tuesdays I crawl up

the wall a shadow

only to shove mugwort

in my eyes—

It burns the way

my thighs did

when the noose

didn’t work

and

I’ve noticed a dying bat resting between

my shoulder blades, quiet like

the still, suffocated night. We screech

like sisters, our see-through bodies

a paper jacket, a satin sheet

covering a shapeshifter,

a hysteric-sewn hag

raging in her own filth.

Confession: on Saturdays, I fill the bathtub

full of piss

only to laugh when

I drink it—

It tastes the way

my womb did

the morning I

carved it out

yet

awake on this ceiling, I masturbate

to the sounds of cardinals,

my mattress a nest, a beaten-in

bruise, my skin a wrinkled dress

I’ve long since taken off.        

Stephanie M. Wytovich is an American poet, novelist, and essayist. Her work has been showcased in numerous venues such as Weird Tales, Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories, Fantastic Tales of Terror, Year's Best Hardcore Horror: Volume 2, The Best Horror of the Year: Volume 8, as well as many others.

Wytovich is the Poetry Editor for Raw Dog Screaming Press, an adjunct at Western Connecticut State University, Southern New Hampshire University, and Point Park University, and a mentor with Crystal Lake Publishing. She is a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, an active member of the Horror Writers Association, and a graduate of Seton Hill University’s MFA program for Writing Popular Fiction. Her Bram Stoker Award-winning poetry collection, Brothel, earned a home with Raw Dog Screaming Press alongside Hysteria: A Collection of Madness, Mourning Jewelry, An Exorcism of Angels, Sheet Music to My Acoustic Nightmare, and most recently, The Apocalyptic Mannequin. Her debut novel, The Eighth, is published with Dark Regions Press.

Follow Wytovich on her blog at http://stephaniewytovich.blogspot.com/ and on twitter @SWytovich.