Chapter 1

Me and John always fit together. Our bodies, our minds. We were like a jigsaw piece, each corner smooth and perfectly aligned with an equally smooth incave in the matching piece. Yet, each piece had its own faults that gave it character and personality. And then maybe those gaps grew wider without me realising. Or maybe I put a wrong piece in somewhere and set the balance off. Either way, all I know is now I’m alone in the world. John won’t even talk to me. He should know all that bullshit about Cooper and me was pure school drama. Only this time, instead of reading the latest issue of scholars weekly (the shitty unofficial school news site), with Marylin, I heard it through the ever so subtle grape vine. Or should I just say just a boring regular vine, that one that runs down the side of the stall in the girl’s bathroom to be precise. But I guess I had it coming. I could have treated John better. But that’s the least of my concerns.

I could never grow accustomed to the silence though. Without Marylin going on and on about how the term anarco-communism has enabled the growth of socialism and white people should stop viewing all political and economic issues through the myopic lens of their own self actualisation. Then insert the actual quote from Bo Burnham, cause Marylin could never forget a piece of social commentary. I guess some of it must have stayed in my head, because I can’t help thinking about police funding as I pass by one of the missing girl posters in the window of that new trendy café on Mercinary Street.

Marylin has been missing a whole week now. It was just last week we went for coffee there. And Marylin took me on a journey through Brazil as she exclaimed over the knowledge of the baristas there. She’s a bit of a “coffee head” as our foster mom would say. Hey, I guess I still have her. Only all the answers to my questions must lie at the end of a bottle somewhere.

School is just as dismal as it has been for the last week. Between looks of sympathy and vengeance I can’t figure out if I should run or fight. Sure, I allegedly cheated on Saint John, basketball superstar (even though Cooper is just as good), but it’s not like I broke everyone else’s heart. When I get home I take a shower, the remanence of my attempt at cleaning the word slut from my desk slowly but surely washes away. I shave, and after noticing the top missing from Marylin’s razor I suddenly feel sick. I guess my right leg can get the chop tomorrow, I won’t be wearing shorts anyway, nothing but long skirts for me now. But part of me is whispering; “give them something to talk about”.

 I decide to finish shaving and on my way into my room I almost trip over the book. Her book. How could I leave it just lying around there. I haven’t opened it yet, but after Jerry Macaulay told me he was sorry for my loss today I guess now’s the time. I always new she wrote poetry in here, but I never read it. I wanted her to read it to me someday when she had the confidence. But who knows, there could be a clue in here somewhere. And God knows I’m the only one still looking for those. The police haven’t done shit. But I need the silence to stop. So, I open it and read aloud, as if she was right here next to me.

Chapter 2

Page 1

Ignorance is bliss they say

And it is, oh it is

But what about those without the luxury

Without the astuteness to look away

At what point does ignorance become neglect

Before or after it turns to disdain?

The forbearance of it is to be admired

But it’s contagion should be headed

Enticing as it is

Bliss among the purported

You must ask yourself

At what point does ignorance become a crime

I am still pondering at what point does ignorance become a crime, when I get home the next day. Was I the ignorant one? Should I have noticed something. Have I missed something? I should really read the whole book, but I couldn’t do it. Not yet. Not until she can come home and tell me how it ends herself. So, I decide to take it one page at a time. Just one little remark a day, one poem a night to help me forget about that night with Cooper, because lying to myself is beginning to get tiresome.

Page 2

There’s no shame in going through the motions

It’s okay if today’s best isn’t yesterday’s

I head out on my bike the next day, looking, again. I swing by Aoife’s house but she’s not there. I want to get this whole cheating thing straight with her, because if she believes it, she’ll never be my friend again. But the silence isn’t so loud anymore, not after reading it. Reading her.

Page 3

I am selfish

And all that is encompassed by it

I take and take and take

Under the delusion that I do it for them

I listen

But I really am studying my prey

Be careful what you say

For every little bit of yourself you give away

Can be used against you

I am selfish

And more than you mean by it

I give and give and give

Far more than could ever be returned

I bathe in the guilt I have created

I find sanity in my self-destruction

I am selfish

Chapter 3

Page 10

The darkness calls my name

We dance each night

I have made promises I know I cannot keep

Been willingly seduced

She tenderly lays me down

The sheets are warm and safe

But when I must leave her in the morning

She douses me in guilt and anger

A part of her comes with me,

More of her each day

Begging me to go back with her

Making promises she cannot keep

The next day is Sunday, and again I find myself on that same road, riding my bike just slow enough so I can see into the woods. Just in case. This is where she was last seen, so I guess I should be further away from here right? But there’s something about this place. Those woods. They have a different silence than the one I fight with Marylin’s words each night. It’s more tranquil, but still more foreboding. More comfortable, somehow. The unknown behind the tree line a sign of hope. It is as tough the forest becomes that ear you need, that warm hug you crave for. The shadows of the trees hide by perpetually puffy red eyes as I stride down our regular route. This is my 3^rd time being here since she went missing. But I’ve brought her with me, or part of her at least.

Page 11

His hand lands on my shoulder as he strolls by,

A familiar, comfortable grip.

From behind, he breaths out the words

‘Darling’

Despite the sanguine chirp of the morning chorus

Outside the kitchen window

My body goes stiff, a familiar cold

I hold my breath, until he passes

To get his morning glass of orange juice,

Bits, ‘don’t get the one without bits’

I don’t let it out

Not until my knees go weak

My knuckles a white, cold flame

Just a cheerful, Sunday morning

But he squeezes a little too hard

Stares a little too long

I guess it was a mistake to bring it along, because now I’m sprinting back along the path and fumbling onto my bike as a tear slowly makes it’s way down the valley of my cheek. She had told me so much, without saying anything at all.

Chapter 4

Page 12

My parents don’t love each other, but who’s truly do

Love is a fragile thing

And once broken, it’s shards are as sharp as a blade

I’ve began to understand why none of us wear skirts

Began to understand my mother’s worried face as my sister applies her makeup

I hate the way he looks at us

How he touches her sometimes, her shoulders going stiff

How they act like strangers

I was never meant to be here

And she hated me for it, but at the end of the bottle

I was still his,

And now her eyes are full of a stinging regret

I only wish she wanted better for herself

But she is frozen,

A sculpture of a long-ago courage, a youthful flare,

Her pride and joy

Gone rancid, for now it has turned her to stone.

A cold silhouette of a women long lost

What me and my mother share

Something we dare not imply

Something foul

The vengeful evil of lust

Soured love, violent, suffocating.

The isolation of regret

The flaring red flame of hatred

With which we scald and scorn ourselves with.

A maternal bond formed from violence and envy

Built of shame and shushed rumours.

We are both sorry that I ever came to be

I will always be his

What me and my mother share

We never talked much about our families before foster care, it’s kinda rule number one in here. Positivity or something, right? I feel like I’ve lost all of that as I read the words aloud. The silence has become promising now. The promise of her words fills me with apprehension, and readiness. Ready to find her, to see her again. God, I am so ready. I’m ready for anything. Ready for whatever mess she’s got herself into now. Ready to bring her to rehab, again. I’ll do anything. I just ask that she come home and stop the silence I work so hard to fill.

Chapter 5

Page 13

I don’t know why I slash myself open

Perhaps for the same reason that I write

To give meaning to the suffering

For the idea that our pain is inherently meaningless

Is so much

That I would rather gauge out my own skin

Then accept such a reality

                                                   -I create my own fantasies with the blade

I’m cycling way too fast down a path way too narrow. But I don’t care anymore.

Page 14

I just lay there

My heart thumps and thumps, my chest hurts from it’s constant rebuke.

Page 15

I wish I didn’t care

And it’s selfish, I know it is

But I wish I didn’t love them

It’s fucking killing me

There’s that word again, selfish. Never in a million years would I have described Marylin as selfish. Marylin was nothing but flowers and sunsets, I thought. Scars purple as the night sky, highlighting the pale glow of her thighs. She never knew I saw, but maybe I should have said something. Because now, with her here, I’ve gone down a path into Marylin’s mind that I never knew existed. And it just goes on and on and deeper and deeper. I notice I’m only halfway through the book. How can there be this many words unspoken until now, this much gone unappreciated. Marylin had eyes that told you who she was. Hair that begged you to come closer. A smile that welcomed even her greatest enemies. Marylin was beauty, and I should have told her that. But then again, would the uttering of such words ruin what we had, or what I thought we had, or simply solidify it. I will never know, because I was too scared to tell her. I enjoy working in the silence now, this new poetry aloud. But the closer I get to the end, the darker I become. Until I can only think of her. Of the next poem, the next line. I’m and addict.

Page 19

Addiction is an all-consuming disease

That knows only the most deviant of hungers

It has but one goal

And to have just one all-consuming goal

Is the essence of what evil truly is

Chapter 6

Page 21

What I miss most?

To be able to enjoy another’s laughter

If I can’t share the happiness of another

I have lost all I had

Now I have nothing, except

The expectation to stay,

So others can live.

I stand at our spot, the forest loams ahead, the lake providing a needed respite from the judgement of the trees. Sometimes I can almost hear her here, feel her here. Aoife’s not returning my calls, and I can forget about cheerleading this year. The air is heavy with dread, and beads of sweet start to accumulate on my forehead. As they navigate their way down my face I see it, a silhouette in the dusk.

Chapter 7

Page 22

“If anyone could have saved me it would have been you”

-Virginia Woolf

I stand, frozen to the spot. And for some weird, bizarre reason I make a mental note to remember this moment. To remember the moment my heart shattered into one of those tiny pieces. Sharp as a blade. The moment I lost all the hope I had found in her. And there she is, beauty and grace, destroyed. Her golden locks hanging loose around her shoulders. So still. I would have imagined more…movement. Wind, some other sound. But there is nothing left. No birds chirping, no kids playing. Just me and her, like it always used to be. And as I approach her my stride is steady. I am no longer me but my own silhouette. And as I approach her my breathing slows, and I already know what’s written on the note in her pocket. As I approach her the purple of what was once beauty has faded into the overwhelming purple tinge that has taken over her body. As I approach her, I think of all the ways I could have told her to stay, and all the ways it wouldn’t have made a difference. Because the moment you stop repeating something to someone, they will forget it. I think back on the moment my heart broke. The moment I died. And walk straight past her towards the cliff edge.

Page 23

I am so sorry

But I must do something

I don’t expect you to forgive me

But I’d like you to forget