Who are your favorite yokai and why?
Ladies of Japan
By Clayton Overstreet
Hachishakusama, she stands at eight feet tall,
While the Jorogumo has eight legs but no feet at all.
Bakeneko has two tails,
The Kitsune maybe five.
Cross paths with any one of them and you will never get back home alive.
Yukionna lives in snow,
Okiku counts to ten,
Nukekube lost her head,
The thing they have in common is devouring the flesh of men.
Teke Teke takes your legs,
A tanuki will try to steal away your liver and may just sway your heart,
While Lady Kuchisaki will cut your face apart.
Momo hunts you on the net,
Benzaiten at the park,
Under bridges, behind doors, mind the gaps,
A thousand angry woman ghosts and sexy goblins are waiting in the dark.
They will eat your flesh right off your very bones,
Suck your blood and more,
They’ll drive you mad and haunt your lovely home,
With much more in store.
I know you want to meet them all,
You probably just can’t wait,
So how about we have the Shinigami pencil you in,
Some time between four and eight?
“Am I still pretty?’
I find myself alone in the dark, under a single yellow streetlight,
Walking home from the library on a warm and cloudy night.
I watch her approach, skin as smooth as silk and pale as the dead,
A sultry figure stepping forth, dressed entirely in red.
Beauty peeking out from behind a medical mask,
Her eyes meet mine and I see there is a question that she wants to ask.
“Do you think I am pretty?” she says, sounding sly as any sphinx.
I look her up and down, trying to decide my answer, unsure of what to think.
I have heard of her before, but I can hardly believe that the stories are all true,
Sure the tales cannot be real I answer honestly, “I absolutely do.”
She smiles and reaches up to pull the mask aside,
I freeze in place and gaze upon her face trying not to cry.
“Am I still pretty?” She asks again, her smile spreading far too wide.
Ear to ear, side to side, no longer having anywhere to hide.
She was gorgeous once I know and can see, around the spreading gash.
Only now it is marred beyond repair, by a tortured crimson slash.
I want to hug her and tell her everything will be alright,
I also want to turn and run away until I am safely hidden from her sight.
The madness in her eyes says that neither is a choice.
A blade appears in her hand and I find I have lost my voice.
The shiny steel is my whole world now, reflecting back my face.
I cannot look aside or flee, even as my heart begins to race.
Some time later we part and I continue on the path to home,
I step across the threshold, sliced down to the bone.
My parents are sitting there, staying up to wait.
They plan to chastise me thoroughly, for coming home so late.
My father sees me first and looks on with horror, pain, and pity in his eyes,
While my mother screams until she is out of breath,
Body shaking still wracked with more silent broken hearted cries.
I feel the tears begin to fall and they sting against my cheek,
As in despair I force myself to ignore the agony and speak.
Ruby drops spill from me as if from a gushing oil well,
My reopened wounds burning like the fires of the very pits of Hell.
All I can do is let the fresh cut split and dried fluids once again begin to leak,
Asking the question whose answer I already know will not be the one I seek.
They can tell that I am not smiling no matter how wide appears my grin,
My blouse a spreading scarlet stain from the river bubbling down my blood encrusted chin.
“Am I still pretty?”
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