For me, poetry and writing are inseparable. The way I engage with language—through prose, verse, music, and storytelling—has always been enriched by metaphor. It allows me to draw emotional parallels, to frame the strange through the familiar. It creates a connective tissue between reader and experience. That’s why metaphor is more than a literary device to me—it’s a bridge.
One of my most meaningful pieces to date is Human Ouija. A short horror story, it debuted as a bestseller, buoyed by pre-orders, and later earned me an award in the horror genre. But beyond accolades, it felt like something deeper—a turning point in how I expressed my voice.
“After his wife died in a horrific car accident, Oscar Sermons’ life spiraled. He’s held it together, barely, clinging to a desperate wish to speak to her again. A chance meeting with a Romani traveler named Marica opens that door—but not without warning. She and her aunt caution him against tampering with forces beyond comprehension. He doesn’t listen. What follows changes everything.”
Writing that story was an experiment and a declaration. I wanted to see if my natural lyrical tendencies and poetic instincts could harmonize within horror fiction. The result was the most honest work I could offer—a painting made of words. This approach has since become my signature: horror told through a poetic lens.
In horror, atmosphere is everything. It’s not just backdrop—it’s a character in its own right. When I write, dark poetic language helps shape that atmosphere. It elevates the ordinary. It imbues every space with emotional weight.
“The walls were soaked in a somber heaviness of unspoken horrors.”
That line isn’t just setting the scene—it’s casting a spell. Poetry can do that. It pulls the reader deeper into the world. It stirs emotion and unease without saying too much. It whispers rather than screams.
Poetry also allows for controlled tension. It offers rhythm. In horror, rhythm matters. It’s the pulse behind the pacing, the silence before the scream. It lets me shift gears, slow things down, or build dread steadily—almost musically. It lends itself well to the psychological nature of fear.
Take The Exorcist, for example. Early on, there’s a subtle moment: rats in the attic. The traps are untouched. The attic is spotless. Still, the sounds persist—scratching, scurrying. Something unseen, something inexplicable.
Rats in horror often symbolize filth, rot, or plague—a callback to historical fears like the Black Death. But here, they serve a different function. They foreshadow. They hint. They unsettle. They’re a harbinger of the unnatural, a crack in the foundation of reality. They introduce doubt—quietly, but powerfully.
That’s the beauty of poetic horror. Even in a novel like The Exorcist, not traditionally thought of as poetry, poetic elements are at play: careful word choice, charged imagery, rhythmic tension. These things provoke dread, evoke decay, and resonate long after the page is turned.
Horror doesn’t have to shout to be terrifying. Sometimes it’s a whisper, a metaphor, a lingering image. And for me, the most haunting stories are those written with a poetic heart.
