Horror So Real: Melancholia is a collection of dark poetry reflecting on real-life horrors

 

Melancholia: A Book of Dark Poetry

Sumiko Saulson

Bludgeoned Girls Press, 2024

Ebook, 95 ppg.

ISBN: 979-8990327719

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Collections of dark poetry can be about anything. They can be poems that are truly dark and disturbing, or they could be poems of dark things found in the real world. For Melancholia: A Book of Dark Poetry by Sumiko Saulson, it is both. Here readers will find dark poems of fictional creatures as well as dark poems about truly horrific events and goings-on that are in the real world, both past and present.

 

Not all of the poems in this book are dark, however. “The Doormouse Is Dreaming” is a cute poem. With descriptions of “Blankets and pillows/All covered with down” and “shallow waters puddle-wide.” I can almost picture the Doormouse dreaming while asleep, comfortably reclined on “handknit doilies.”

 

“The Child on the Lawn” was a sad poem to read. It reminded me of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old shot and killed by police when he was playing with a fake gun at a park. This poem is so profound, with lines like “Were there tears in his eyes/When he held his head down?” and “Now he's walking the streets/Though the guilty may hide/Their sanity is unwound/By the sound of his/Telltale Heartbeat.”

 

I loved how the poems “Replika, My Ex” and “Faceborg” explore our addiction with the internet/smartphones. Some of that addiction can be pretty terrifying, and there are no holds barred in these poems. These poems also touch on things many people fixated with this connection to artificial technology would understand.

 

I also liked the poems “The Queen of Death, Perplexed” and “The Melancholic Eye” and “Coachella Ghost.”

 

Many of the poems in this book are about real-life horrors as well as fictional horrors. Some of them are personal, while others are imaginative and dark. All of them are good poems and I enjoyed reading them.

 

Melancholia: A Book of Dark Poetry is an entertaining, thought-provoking collection of poetry that will leave readers with a sense of trepidation. Some of these poems will make readers think, while others offer reminders of how we cannot allow the injustices taking place in our society to continue. These poems are both haunting and depressing, leaving the reader with a lingering sense that perhaps it is time to do more to create change.

 

 

 

Five stars

 

 

 

 

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Surviving a Childhood of Hell: Not Dead Yet is a Harrowing Account of Torture and Abuse

 

Not Dead Yet

Tracey Nudd

Independently published, 2023

ISBN: 979-8868334139

54 ppg., softcover

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In a perfect world, all children would be loved and cared for by their mothers and stepparents the way an innocent childhood calls for. But, sadly, in the real world, many children endure relentless physical, verbal, emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of the people not only who brought them into this world but also those responsible for caring for them.

 

And while Bella’s story of physical, verbal and sexual abuse is horrifying and gut-wrenching, it is just one of many stories of children suffering years of such torment.

 

This book is definitely not for the faint of heart. There are graphic scenes of child sex abuse wrought upon Bella by her stepfather and his friend. There is even psychological abuse, as he pressures Bella to say “yes, Daddy” when he asks her if she is a whore or if she likes what is being done to her. Bella knows better than to say otherwise.

 

One may ask if the person in such a situation ever tries to escape. The story is told in first person, and Bella recalls her many failed attempts to either hide from her abuser or run away.

 

Bella’s mother could be her rescuer but, instead, only adds to the abuse. She physically and verbally abuses Bella, though the story is mostly focused on the abuse Bella receives from her stepfather. She keeps Bella alive and around only because of the food stamps she receives, which she sells for drug money. She also jokes with her husband that if his many rapes of her daughter results in pregnancy, it’s more children to use for food stamps as well as for abuse.

 

Tracey Nudd writes a story of a child who endured years of brutal and horrible abuse in her home. Many readers are warned of triggering content in this novelette, and for good measure. Most of this story was hard to read but it is also close to the reality of what many children being abused endure. We cannot turn a blind eye to such things. This kind of material may be hard to expose ourselves, to but it is harder still for the children in real life who are forced to experience the same kind of horror.

 

Not Dead Yet is a haunting story of a child’s horrifying experiences of rape and abuse. It captures just one of many stories out there, except other stories will never be told by the victims. This particular victim-turned-survivor lived through the kind of hell no one should ever endure, with the kind of spirit holding out hope to get out of that hellish nightmare alive.

 

 

Five stars

 

 

 

Disclaimer: I purchased this book from the author and my review of this book is completely voluntary.

A Tale of Two Screams: The Screaming Child is a haunting account of one mother's obsession to find her missing child

 

The Screaming Child

By Scott Adlerberg

Ghoulish Books, 2023

ISBN: 978-1-943720-87-3

176 ppg.

Buylink

 

Brace yourself. You are about to be pulled into a mother’s grief. No, her son is not dead – at least, we think he is not dead. But he is missing, and the not knowing of where he is, if he is safe, if he is cared for or even if he is alive eats away at the mother in this book. This story is told from the mother’s point-of-view, so readers get a very raw and very emotional grasp of what she is going through.

 

In the beginning, we are introduced to the child who will eventually go missing. The story begins just as it does for many parents of missing children: One day, their child is there, then they are not. They are gone, almost erased from the world.

 

Coping with her child missing is just too much for the mother, Eleanor. She can’t handle it, as I’m sure many parents with missing children cannot. The pain, uncertainty and anger gets to be so bad between her and her husband that they often argue with each other. There’s the blame, the confusion and the regret.

 

So, she decides to spend some time somewhere else for a while. Somewhere she can be alone and just try to PROCESS everything.

 

Plus, being at home, a place she shared with her child, is too much for her. "On Grahame’s bed, at the kitchen table, in the closet with his sneakers and shoes—everywhere in the house, through every square foot—a void existed where my son had been. My husband could not fill that void." (Page 55)

 

Eleanor tries to throw herself into the writing of a nonfiction book she was working on before her child disappeared. Even then, though, she struggles with it, wondering if she is focusing her energy on the wrong thing. But then, while she is at her “shack,” something happens: She hears a scream. At first, she is not sure if she heard this sound right, but then she hears it again. And again. And she is convinced it is a child screaming. A thought enters her head: ‘That could be MY child who is screaming.’

 

This, I feel, is what ultimately keeps her rooted to the spot. She is extremely against leaving the shack and returning home to civilization. Perhaps she thinks she is close to wherever her child is being held captive. Maybe it’s a sign that he is alive and she must not give up hope. Whatever she feels about it, she refuses to leave her spot, instead staying and hoping to keep hearing that scream again.

 

This takes Eleanor through a world where she’s not sure which is which. On one hand, she hangs on to this mystery of the scream, wondering if it really is her child. And on the other hand, she tries to focus on the tangible things she can work with: Talking with people who knew her son, who know the area better or have more knowledge about the case. She tries to stay grounded even as the lingering mystery of that screaming child keeps trying to pull her back into a world of “what if’s” that she knows will cause her to lose the last grip of her sanity.

 

This is not just a story about a mother dealing with the pain of her child missing; in a way, it’s also a mystery to be solved. So, appropriately, this is a mystery horror novel. Eleanor gets all these different clues and all this misdirection happens, and while I was reading it, I was trying to think ahead. I was right there with her trying to solve that mystery and trying to find out where her son had been snatched away to.

 

One thing I noticed about this story that really stood out for me is the scream itself. Before Eleanor hears the scream of a child, she hears the anguished scream of a mother who has lost a child. This parallelism made me wonder how it seemed to symbolize the meaning of the story itself. The whole message behind the story. There is the mother who lost her child screaming and there is a child, possibly taken from a mother, screaming. It’s a thought I entertained until I got to the real horrors of this story, a horror which I was not prepared for.

 

The Screaming Child is a gripping story of loss and isolationism, as well as a raw look into the stories we try telling ourselves to alleviate the harsh realities of the world. For some, mysteries may never be solved, and we must cope with them in our own ways. Where to go from there are roads we all must eventually travel on our own.

 

 

Five stars

 

 

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.