An instant such as that, god only knows how much it had hurt. I resolved on a plan, a terrible, disgusting plan. One that required me to push away my conscience and semblance of self entirely.

A plan which left me ultimately heartless.

Oliver Starkweather, the only boy in the world. He had taken the part of me which made me more vulnerable to him than anyone else. Not only that, he was the only person I felt that I truly cared about, the only person, family included, that I could even begin to imagine using the word love on. The only entity that could ever hurt me. And that realization tied me to him forever.

Yet, that made me weak when I wanted to be strong, controlled when I wanted to control.

I had discovered a secret in a week that Oliver hadn’t in a year. His father; rich, generous, and virtually absent from his life, had a small additional house built on their property. Something he’d told me once was, “My dad works in sales.” At night when I couldn’t sleep, I took to exploring their big empty house. One week into my stay, I dared to venture out into the newer one. It was there that I discovered the bookcase. It appeared normal, every book on the shelf was dusty and ridiculously boring looking. The rest of the room had similar bookshelves with similar looking books, but they were mixed in with vibrant titles and a more alluring collection. From there, I began taking down books off of the shelf and flipping through them. The majority were as boring inside as they were out, but the fifth one I collected - which came from the top right corner - turned me whole perception upside down.

Being a morbid little girl, I had always been fascinated with taboos. I would sneak into my dad’s office at night and search words on his computer. Words like gore or ******* or drugs. When I opened that book I knew instantly, even at fourteen, that a book with all the inside pages cut out and baggie after baggie of white powder inside meant trouble. On the shelf, I found three more secret stashes. After that I’d seen enough.



    When the autopsy was performed, the results read drug overdose. My tracks were well covered, for Oliver’s dad assumed Oliver had been secretly dipping into his bookshelf. Dealing was a felony that Mr. Starkweather was not about to risk, so he confessed that Oliver had been struggling with a drug problem. Sweet, demure, heartbroken me was sent back home, and years of therapy brainwashed me into so much denial that I was able to bottle up the entire story and force myself to forget. Deep down, I’d always known, but my mental unrest defied that.

Consequently, he returned. Maybe karma drove me crazy, maybe it was guilt.

But more than anything, it was probably loneliness.

Tracing the hour,
The distance I follow,
Wands and Auroras,
These echoing phrases,
These expiates of shadow.
Angels and Sailors of far of seas,
Ghosts ships of carrion,
This unknowledgeable surrender,
This last ember,
A blazing Supernova.
This rung down the ladder,
Barkok and Liszt,
Stickball in high summer,
Unraveling spector
Of chariots and Pharaohs,
Matresses of mourning,
Days of black shoes,
Pairs that tread the same dirt road.
Venturing clouds,
These invisible evenings,
A burned mound of wheels,
Converging signals
Alinged to one.
Horses braying a symphony of dust.
The end and the beginning Never touching the middle,
Straddling curve space time,
A stratosphere of clouds.
Cobweb hung planets,
Their rings revolving
The shining simmer
In the final arc of sun.
Just outside Nebraska,
Down Highway 1A,
Charles Starkweather Haunts
Gretchen lost ghost.
The dark specter residing
In old Elmer's cornfield,
It moans and shudders
The grave hours passing
Like strands on a string.
Bombardiers blasting
The last metal gun tower,
As Churchill railed the invading Blitzkrieg,
Sending out the Valiant
To apocalypse the hour.
Long rainy seasons,
The trees weeping
The last wilting flower's lonely despair..
The rim of the hour
Dialing shadows dreary filing
Down corridors of clocks,
A Canticle of stars, the dark night revolving,
One billion Angels sing to the light.