Inspired By Charles Starkweather Poem by Kayt Krepcho

You Charles Starkweather,
dirty little James Dean of Nebraska,
with your bow legs and hissing speech impediment.
We poked fun at you in the cafeteria between bells.
Your cigarette hanging dully between those two dead lips,
bouncing as you cried.
Where were you when I threw a chair in disgust? —
crying in the first stall, knees up to your chest,
swollen eyes buried in your uniform pleats.
You pressed your back into the stone walls outside,
hiding from the horror of pre-menstrual teenage girls.
We heard your strange gallop through the halls third period.
I found a love note stashed in my locker.
You drew me a picture of my father,
bullet through his brains. You used fruit punch as blood.
You kissed me underneath the stairs
and tasted like chewing tobacco and peach schnapps.
I loved you then.