By Jordan Witham
Undead Wanderer
Thin crystal skin
Cut from dead kin
Stretched over bone
Before, as live as stone
A cold heart that throbs
Yearning for what was robbed
An undead, towering structure
Searching for its constructor
Rightful Company
Why must I live
When he will not give
What I need to survive
Is his job to revive
I hate bringing misery
But this man, his trickery
Knows no bounds
When he sends his hounds
He lets his fear take hold
But I am still rather bold
On what he has to do
For his life to continue
To satisfy his worst creation
All he need do is end my isolation
His world’s people are close-minded
Fear causing them to be blinded
To what truly I am
Existence is a sham
My Creation
This monster, my creation
My pinnacle ideation
Of a reborn lord
Through bodies gored
How I was a fool
An unseeing tool
I have created no God
But a monster who sawed
My life to but slivers
His face fuels my shivers
My life’s flotsam washes ashore
All my dreams, and those I adored
Have been taken by him
Even my own kin
Now as I lay
Knowing I’ll die
I pray for salvation
For my one true lord
To forgive my situation
Reflection
I love thinking about the perspective of villains. But to be honest, I’m not quite sure Frankenstein even is truly a villain. He is like an animal cursed with human thought, not able to properly control or fully understand his actions. That is why I decided to write two pieces. I wanted to show both of their points of views, and how drastically different they are. Victor wanted to create something beautiful, something amazing and spectacular. But he failed, and now sees his creation as the epitome of evil. Feeling nothing but disgust towards his failed experiment. While on the other hand Frankenstein, or the monster simply wants to not be alone in his existence in a world that would most likely (and already partly does) despise him. I do not see him as being mentally capable of truly telling right from wrong, simply seeing his actions as just means for his goal. My first inspiration is the song The Judge by the band twenty one pilots. This song is a huge part of why I have always loved seeing things from the bad guy’s perspective. And this song includes the lyrics: “when the leader of the bad guys sang / Somethin’ soft and soaked in pain / I heard the echo from his secret hideaway / He must’ve forgot to close his door / As he cranked out those dismal chords / And his four wall declared him insane” (The Judge, twenty one pilots, 2015). Now the lyrics in this song are notoriously difficult to explain. Even the author of the song, Tyler Joseph, has no single answer for what they mean. But these lyrics always inspired me to sympathize and empathize with bad guys. This, among other inspirations has always led me to try writing as a villain. With my biggest writing project, a project I’ve been working on for 5+ years having a bad guy as the main character(s). For Victor’s poem, I wrote it about him trying to remake god and making what he sees as the devil instead. I know that might not be exactly what his intentions were in the book, but I found that idea really interesting to write about. A huge inspiration for my poem about Victor was Dr. Facilier from The Princess and the Frog by Walt Disney Animation Studios. Now I know this is a stretch, because honestly I had a hard time finding one exact person, place or thing that directly inspired my poem about Victor. Dr. Facilier, like Victor, have created a strained relationship with otherworldly creatures. With Victor refusing to give his creation a companion reminding me when reading the book of how Dr. Facilier was desperate but ultimately unable to repay his debt to the voodoo spirits. Both characters dying at the end of their respective stories. In my poem about Victor, I implied that he created the monster because he wanted to create a God. This idea came from the central plot theme of the video game series Halo. In the first Halo games, Humanity is in a galaxy-wide war with an alien alliance called The Covenant which believe it is their holy mission to destroy all of Humanity and start a Great Journey by activating ancient halo shaped worlds called Rings. When in actuality, activating the Rings would destroy all life in the galaxy. This false belief, and its effect on humanity (who lost ⅔ of their colony worlds to the Covenant through genocide). This false religious belief theme partly inspired me when writing Victor’s poem. Lastly, I am including a short poem which is a third person view on the monster, because while reading the book itself, I was inspired to write a poem describing the monster using visual imagery.
Sprockets and Springes 