I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.





-Edgar Allan Poe





Love was something that I thought was overrated. I didn’t believe that love was for everyone. I thought that love was for certain people that deserved it. I was one of those people that didn’t deserve it. I never loved anyone or anything until I met her. She made my life better and I was grateful with every fiber of my being.

She was not like anyone that I had ever seen before. The way that she glowed with immortality was immensely beautiful, yet she was humble as if she arose from the ground itself. She had eyes of amber and dusky rose cheeks. Her hair flowed down her back and every move she made, it flowed with her. She walked with such grace and flamboyance. She was everything that it meant to be perfect. I knew that I had to have her from the moment that I saw her.


I wondered to myself: “No one as perfect as she would ever love me to any capacity as I would love her.” It didn’t matter if she loved me as much as I loved her. An inkling of love would account for all that I needed. I was parked in front of the only gas station in town sitting in my 1994 Ford truck looking every bit of a normal country boy. I was wearing ripped jeans that were dirty from working on the farm, along with a dingy muscle tank and worn boots.

I knew for sure that she wouldn’t look my way. I pestered myself trying to build up the courage to talk to her. I parted my lips to say one word, hello, and she whipped her heard toward me and flashed a smile worth a million miles of land. It was magic. No girl had ever looked at me the way that she did. She walked into the gas station and three minutes later she walked out with a stick of beef jerky and a coke.


I got out of my truck and stood up leaned against the hood. As charming as I could I smiled and said fat penguin. She asked me what I was talking about and I told her I just wanted to say something that would break the ice. Surprisingly, she laughed and I asked her what her name was. When she said Temperance, I thought it was a joke. However, she said that it meant self control, something that her mother thought that she needed more of. At that moment I knew she was special. Even her name was special.

When I asked, she told me she was headed nowhere. She was like a feather that went anywhere that the wind blew her. I had to do something that would make that feather be anchored in my small hometown of Sissonville. She asked me what there was to do that was fun in town. The next thing I know, I was mud sledding with the most beautiful girl in the world. We spent exactly two weeks doing nothing and everything. She taught me something new about my world every day.


I knew that it was love. I knew that she was what it meant to be pure. She lived and enjoyed life effortlessly. What we had was a shade of grey. She was the white and everything good. I was the black. I always worried too much or didn’t care enough. I could break my nose and brush it off, but if she accidentally cut herself then I would go crazy until I did everything in my power to make her feel better.

That was how it was with us. We spoke without words, and we read each on another’s thought. She was embedded into my heart, which she made race faster than lightning. Those two weeks with Temperance were the best two weeks of my life. She completed me and we lived that way forever.