Q. Why did God make you?
A. God made me to know him, love him, and serve him in this world.
— Baltimore Catechism

I. Frankensteinian
              Irony, they probably don’t know,
              tastes like flat beer.
              Of course, they fear me,
              hands the size of feet with fingers,
              seams and stitches
              where my heartline should be.
              The color of resurrected skin
              reminds them of winter rain.

              But I have eyes which have seen
              the other side of death,
              and I would tell them
              that they need only to be kind.
              Not just to me
              But there is still anger
              over the stolen fire,
              so I am made their compensation.
              But I laugh from the funeral pyre.

II. Lycanthropic
              Moons do more than make tides ebb
              or reflect the absent suns of lovers.
              And some sounds aren’t perceived
              in night-silenced woods and moors.
              The damned itching of hair on my cheeks
              naturally makes blood more palatable.

              But I have conversed with astute gypsies 
              who live on the run enough to know 
              eternal movement is the only place
              of deposit for the modern soul.
              Instead, I will let them impale me
              on the spokes of a hateful pentagram, 
              and become the wheel
              They roll toward their terrible churches.

III. Draculesque
              I, pessimistic, make my entrances
              into second-story bedrooms
              where young girls, blonde as clouds,
              sleep in the face of my powerful will.
              And all I would want is a kiss.
              I gather in batwings, see her eyes 
                           expanding into solar systems of fear
                                         just before I silence her scream with a stare.

              I sit on the edge of a blue-blanketed bed
              in the hopeless light of a desklamp
                           which enlivens the shadows
                           until I, too, am frightened, ready to leave
                                         lest I be discovered, fangs, hypnosis,
              and all.

              No love again tonight, and the sun is on its way.
              A stake in the heart would be merely redundant.