Push.
Pull.
******.
Bend.
Hit.
Slap.
Tweak.
Touch.
Turn.
Feel.
Slide.
Press.
Stroke.
Hold.
Twist.

It's ok…ah.
You know just what,
I like.

McDonald's not the place
That miserable place,
The place I  work at,

Don't get me wrong,
It puts bread on the table,

This drama that people throw at you,
It's really just poppycock,

The job is too easy,
Just press a button,

like the easy button
Wish I had a mute button
So I can silence the clicking of these buttons..

-Paul R Hensley |||

Balloon head girl...
With eggs for eyes and
Sharpie lips,,
Don't cry your egg white tears
For me, or let
the yolk leak from holes in
Your diabetic fingers...

Snap your blouse back on, with
The buttons right up
to your neck, a throat with
3 imprints, but
2 hands and  
1 threat

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.

Taking your life was the most selfish and selfless thing I have ever done and will ever do. Oliver and I, we shared the mutual consensus that no one in the world had ever loved us as much as we loved each other. Moreover, we understood one another; we shared the commonalty of unstable upbringings, of neglect, and most pertinently, of loneliness.

We’d dually been abused, rejected, and abandoned by those who were supposed to be our caretakers and guardians and parents. Perhaps, that in itself was how we’d grown such an indestructible bond.

And yet.

I saw a glint of a monster inside of you. The previous night. A manifestation of the horrors you’d faced, suddenly channeled through you. From that moment onward, I began to understand the truth. All of the anguish you’d survived may one day define you. One day, the innocence would be gone and in its place, the product of your childhood would be born.

On the last morning of your life, who you were, was living proof of good. Proof that a person could exist so pure, and kind to the very core. The best and most honorable person in my life. The only friend I’d ever known. I wanted to preserve your memory; a perfect relic, never to be tainted by the evil which would one day consume you.

I knew that as you lived, you were the only entity I’d felt genuine compassion for. The only human I’d ever loved. The only person in the whole world who could ever hurt me. That vulnerability ran like
poison through my logic.

And so, I resolved.

He was the only one that made the yarn trees blossom,
From silken leafs to flowers grown. Then as petals tumbled
Yarn cascaded upon branches and hung. So rich in colour
Were these pieces that they glided upon gentle breezes.

So many colours flowed and creation was gathered each
Picked delicately as not to fray to keep whole. Some of wax
Were covered while others were light like a feather and felt
like air when sewn. All was plucked till blossom fell once more.

He had knitted the cows from birth they were but a yarn
Now they had grown extra stitching with each passing year,
To help them expand and grow. Upon fibered grass they did feed.
Each one was of a different fibre for milking  purest silk.

Everyday the cows would be milked, and white silk did flow
Into buckets collected and off to be designed maybe into
An elegant swan, A dove, butterfly of white did fly upon its
Creation wings so light its beauty fluttered and flowed.

But Farmer stich had other animals, others to create the
Things needed for twine is fine, but to knit we must have
Buttons to hold. And with that they were fed on pellets
Of plastic proteins and quality was a must.

Every day they laid many a egg. Farmer Stitch would
Hold them to the light to see if they had a flurry of
Buttons inside each one different when cracked open.
Some with one hole, two holes, three, rare was a four.

Farmer stitch was a man of sewn words, he would fasten
His thoughts into ideas. When yarn had flowed upon
The breeze, and eggs did buttons fall from. Many a thing
Would be made, and now this yarn is over till again sewn.