Tomino's Hell
A poem by Yaso Saijō, published in his 1919 collection Sakin, which an urban legend says will curse and kill anyone who reads it aloud.
Yaso Saijō included the poem Tomino's Hell (トミノの地獄) in his 1919 collection Sakin (砂金). The Japanese Wikipedia article on him says it follows a boy named Tomino on a journey through hell. The article says Saijō is thought to have written it for his dead father or his younger sister, but that the details are unknown.
The same article records an urban legend that reading the poem out loud brings a curse and death on the reader. None of the sources records a death linked to the poem.
Online, the poem became tied to a 1999 painting by Yuko Tatsushima, I Can't Be a Bride Anymore. English Wikipedia says the two works were made independently of each other, yet claims spread that the picture carried a curse as well. Polyester Zine describes how the pairing grew into a popular creepypasta under the poem's name. Wikipedia notes that Tatsushima describes most of her paintings as self-portraits.
"A 1999 painting titled I Can’t Be a Bride Anymore by Yuko Tatsushima became attached to one of Yaso Saijō's poems from a 1919 poetry collection named "Sakin" (砂金), titled "Tomino's Hell",[23] with claims that the painting was cursed, even though the painting and the poem were created independently. The red and black scratched painting depicts a figure of a woman with an elongated neck. Tatsushima has stated that most of her paintings are self-portraits, and often incorporate themes of sexual abuse, nuclear holocaust, and borderline personality disorder.[24]"
- 西條八十, Wikipedia (日本語)
- Detailing Yuko Tatsushima's Canvas: The Artist Behind the Inspiration for the Internet's Scariest Creepypastas, Polyester Zine