In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Viktor Frankenstein becomes obsessed with the idea of life and death following the death of his mother, and it seems that her absence is what drives him to eventually create the infamous monster that will consume his every thought for the rest of his (short) life. He must have subconsciously thought that building this creature and bringing it to life would somehow satisfy the part of his brain that was traumatized by his mother’s death, and that gaining some control over death itself might heal his broken heart. In my poem It Grows, I tried to evoke some (very gruesome) imagery of the ideas of decay, and some sickly life growing out of it, as the monster did both figuratively—since his existence is due largely in part to Frankenstein’s mother’s nonexistence—and literally—since he is made out of body parts of men and animals. The seed in my poem is the monster, but it also is the monstrous part of Viktor that grew inside of him after his mother died. The poem is supposed to be from Frankenstein’s perspective, but it could be the innermost thoughts and emotions of any person plagued by the death of a loved one (primarily a mother figure). Viktor Frankenstein is a very dark and morbid individual, evident in his grotesque creation, and I think this poem illustrates that.