my interest was
social experimentation.
it’s why I went to college.
to be educated on the ways
to manipulate small crowds
and because of my naivete,
I did not realize at first
that my interest in sociopaths
was reflection.
but I find serial killers
to be undeniably weak
in their compulsion.

they are artless megalomaniacs.
you could just as easily garden
with the same amount of torrid wonder.
learn to grow nightshade and then
plant it all over town
in places where people smell
flowers and pick weeds for each
other.
but these are men. and
they have to be known.
I’ve always had to cross my
legs.


Mrs. Shepherd said you
cannot bet on things that talk,
Ava, when I interjected to
share my observation that
the same formulas can be applied to people
when presenting with the same patterns over time.
they would be seen as a fixed event
because they have not wavered in
reliability yet.

another time I stated calmly to
my ethics class that the best way to enforce
a law to ensure it gets a message across
is to enforce it blindly.
if you believe in the death penalty
make a black and a white clause;
no matter what the circumstances,
calculated homicide will put you
in the electric chair and then they
wouldn’t quibble with the details.

the first girl to shoot her hand up
was the most riled by my
eyebrow lift and when
she presented to me a Law and Order episode
where the murderer was a child,
I dropped the brow and lifted
the mouth and I said
then kill the child,
bitch.

“events #1” or “effect of varying events”