6th Grade Serial Killers

A Ticonderoga pencil,

Wikipedia,

And a newfound desire for the taboo.

Pencil hovered over paper and my mind raced.

I had heard of them in passing,

Their names used to be fables, ghosts.

No, as my hand ached, clenching that pencil, I found,

People killing people was real.

There was an emptiness behind it.

A void that started to form in me,

Making my eyes burn and my chest tighten,

I had to cut through it with words and ink.

Not violence between kids fighting at school,

Violence out of something deeper.

A part of the brain that I wanted to probe.

To figure it out on paper.

To kill and maim.

Massacre and maul.

I had just learned those words,

Massacre and maul.

I could feel the horror at the tip of the pencil.

Those dark corners of their minds

Waiting to be explored.

The depravity.

Depravity.

Blood in the bedroom, 

Bodies in the basement.

I wanted to disturb my readers.

To stand out against everyone’s stories of summer vacations

And winning park district soccer games.

So, with morbid curiosity,

And a Ticonderoga pencil,

I took to writing my own story.

Trying to grasp the true horror.

Death brought to life.

Pages dripping with gore,

The stench of flesh rotten,

Staining the floors of that sixth-grade classroom.