Acadia, heaven we’ll not win
Creating me, sun dying in the east
Autumn remedy, like broken metal spring,
Leaves, falling flat.
Acadia, will you let me in?
The glass, melted to your door.
Acadia, will you let them in
Through your pallid skin?
Ruins, of this former life
Of your continued strife
Acadia, trouble settles down,
Acadia, first one to leave this town
Amazing, how I honor the deceased,
Not forgetting you, not your reverie.
Acadia, roped beneath the stage,
How will you, tick away, the mocking cage?
Acadia, too late the clouds subdue,
Maybe I, could learn a lesson too.
Oh, my friend, so much left
to chance
Acadia dear, your problems
at a glance.
River, silent mournful walk.
Sit beside a tomb,
a white and spacious room.
The urge, we never lost.
Acadia, leave the drowned to rot.
Leave the hung to rot.
Lately I, only remember faces
Can’t I, throw them to the blazes
Acadia, save pain for rainy days
Acadia, please take the rain away
Please take the rain away
Please take this pain away…


They are haunted like the plain white dresses that cast apparition shadows, as they hang on clotheslines. A stream, a scarecrow, and a girl. The stream was not tranquil, though it was lazy and the surface unbroken. The scarecrow’s gnarled frown chased away birds and smiles. She was the invention of a straitlaced Catholic town, a romanticized end, an ashen color that suited the place. She wore her white dress after dark.
There is no utopia, you will soon realize. There is only the gray-faced clergy who will decide your faith and fate, and the forest beyond the town. She watched them speak empty words, turning away their faces at every hint of opposition. We do not talk of things such as that, not here. She kept her mouth sealed in, fuller words than theirs swallowed. The preacher nodded at his own stories, lies and rumors. It came from a book, just one, black leather bound and old as stone. She kept her veil on so tight; her head’s shape was clearly molded into the fabric. The pews seemed content, with fantasies such as the preacher’s, and accepted the clergy’s judgment without hesitation. She bit the inside of her cheek, and could find no reason to pray.
Cool as glass, winter’s healing touch urged her to the edge of civilization away from the only home she knew, and even it was unwelcome. There she is, the bitter heart, in her white night gown. You don’t know why she cries; it is her duty not to share. Her so called friends can never help. She halts, where the bosky overgrowth lays still and unattractive. She inwardly smiles, untangles the weeds, and scraping through a thorn bush, crawls in.
She’s come for the mystique, the escape. The stream is deep and eternally murky, more so then a well, more than a bottomless pit. Or maybe it is one. She puts her right foot in the water. Ice cuts into her soles. Harsh and bracing. No one is crazy enough to swim here, not in this time of year. That is why she enters the water slowly, still in the weightless gown, and she pretends to swim, making circular motions with her limp arms. She stands, feeling the shiftless bottom, the muck and the dead plants. Closer, but not close enough.
Shivering, she emerges where the stream closes up, and sees in the distant, a gathering of boulders. Curious despite her mood, she shuffles up to the smooth rocks. But they aren’t just rocks. Names, scrawled neatly at the top. Dates, with dashes in between. Flowers, trampled flowers, that died long ago, lay at the base of these rocks. Tombs, artworks, bottomless pits. She puts her hand on the top of a gravestone, belonging to an Eleanor Reid, who died young. How would she like to have such a delicately carved masterpiece as her grave. How would she like to be the one, under it all. Taking her hand away, she looks into the span of the trees. They seem to lean down, curve in, and she realizes that she is standing on a hill. Not under it all, but on top of the world. But nothing will change her so quickly.
Descending, the sun is purple behind her head, a halo. It beams to her, turning moon white. She follows it, and it follows her. No one has ever tried to evade the sun, and she is no exception. Let it come, let it warm me, she thinks. How cold does a corpse get, if the sun shines directly on it?
Soon, we see her approaching the field. Night is being summoned, by deities of the primitive life we forgot, that the town abandoned since they discovered a holy trinity. These deities do not save; they work with a great mother, she who cannot be oppressed. And she doesn’t save, only controls; what we decide to do, is not on her mind as long as the balance is not risked. She walks steady, over the grass. It licks her feet, wet after rain. Before the last wedge of the sun disappears, she just stops. And, it stops with her. The stream, the shuddered breeze, the heavenly spheres above. “Why do you care so much? For me?” She takes it out, a flint. The point is straw thin, and could easily tear the paper thin dress to streamers. “What, do you, know? What?” She laughs, mocking. The flint she takes, and puts up to her temple. “Goodbye, I guess. Meet you in…” She can’t say it. Good little Catholic girls aren’t supposed to wander in the demon reaches of a forest. They aren’t supposed to be thinking such things. They aren’t supposed to be here, as if in worship of other gods. And they certainly shouldn’t be killing themselves, no matter how useless this life on Earth has become. Because that of course, would be murder.
She did not consider an intercession.
Acadia called to her, shouted, a voice that pulled the sun to the field, and held the moon proud and bright in the ink dim sky. Don’t do this! Do not! Please child, before you regret…
She paused, leaving the flint up. Leave me, Acadia, I’m going to do it.
What you want is murder.
What I want is freedom.
Please stop. Please. You can still talk, you still have your friends.
She sneers, then heaves a weeping in the hollow of her throat. You don’t see. I have no one. I am a ghost, see my white? I was dead at conception. I live to do this. Today, now, until the pain is over. Can’t you understand?
Nothing.
“Can’t you hear me!”
If only I could. I am sorry.
Just one thing, Acadia,
if it is really you.
What dear child? No, you can’t be doing this. But you are. Why, why…
Acadia, will you let me in? Will you, Acadia?
Acadia could only whisper,
in the form of early evening frost,
a solemn yes.

They found her body, after much searching, sometime the next morning. The brilliant sun above did not notice their grieving, and it knew full well why. They found her body, head bruised and split at the temple. The flint nearby was dry now, blood wax hard and dark brown. They shook their heads, holding her method in contempt. No entry for her, the wretched dear. The good lord can only save those who listen. And they carried her body off, white gown sullied, and to them, impure with her blood.

And they passed by the grave of Eleanor Reid, who found out she had caught the fever and decided it was better to leave. She, who a century ago had been found hanging from a branch from one of the curled trees, the rope jagged enough to slit her neck to the chin. They buried her where they found her.

And they passed by the stream, endless pool that it was, which 50 years ago the body of a Jane Doe floated in, a lost cherry blossom caught in the water, a crumpled flower. They hauled her out too, the soft body, and buried her near the stream.

They had reservations about burying this girl in the field. Too open, and what they believed was an evil power, kept them from staying there. Her body they found 10 hours after she had done it. She was buried near the woods, beside a willow. Her dress they did not bother to replace with a clean one; her hair they did not wash the blood from; her wound they did not bandage. No prayer said, for the girl who could only be d*mned. A strait laced Catholic town watched in self-righteous agreement as her casket was lowered, covered, and marked.
Meanwhile, Acadia studied them from the shadows. She was blank faced, half awake, and she did not like any of them. She held the girl’s soul in her maternal arms. “It is over. I said I would let you in, even though they say you cannot enter.” She then spotted, a small girl at the boundary of the crowd. The girl cried, not letting them see as she wiped away the wetness from her cheek. She was tired, breathing loudly, and stayed after everyone else had left. She then went to the grave, and knelt beside it. Acadia hugged the comatose soul to her chest, and said lastly “A mourner among hypocrites. A broken heart among so many false emotions. Am I right when I say, your only friend is here? Your only sister?” The soul could not talk. The girl sitting beside the burial, reached her hands to the sky, closed her eyes, and began a song.