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Pocahontas

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his laugh

if i could have anything back

any part of his essence

i would want

his laugh

as life without it has been

no life at all

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Americana Art astrolabe astronomy baseball writing beauty belief biology books cartography cemeteries childhood Christmas chronology civility comfort communication confections corsets dance death digital art digital photography divinity Europe fairy tales family fashion fauna feminism festivities fucking funerals geneology geography gratitude happiness history holidays human behavior humanity iconography journalism Kentucky life literature local color love love poetry mindfulness mourning muse Music mythology non-fiction Ohio ornithology painting Paris photography poetic theory poetry pop culture publishing punk relationship studies relationships religion rituals romance seasons self-love sexuality shooting stars society sociology Southern Gothic technology thanatology The British Royal Crown theology tomes traditions travel writing Uncategorized Urban Legends

Y’all, we’re gettin’ hitched proper this time!

https://fb.me/e/3PnMpe9pV

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Americana desserts fairy tales family

Bashful Johnny Cakes

photo by MPP, Boonton Diner

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Abelard and Heloise activism Americana animals arts astrolabe astronomy baseball writing biology cartography cemeteries chronology comfort dance death destruction deviance domestic violence education epidemeology Europe fairy tales family feminism festivities forensics fucking funerals geneology girl stuff happiness history holidays Hunter S. Thompson iconography journalism local color love poetry medicine muse museums non-fiction Ohio ornithology pandemics performance poetic theory punk red hair in the morning, fucker grab a cab relationship studies religion religious studies reproductive rights rituals science seasons shooting stars society sociology Southern Gothic The British Royal Crown tomes travel writing Urban Legends war weddings womens studies writing

she kept her honor

so he took her like an animal

but my father’s ghost wept

so she went to the men

like a good American

good people don’t want to believe

in visionaries good or bad

especially when you have red clay mud

starved stabbed scabbed over and over

on your grandmother’s dress from being raped just like her

from ft. Sumter to Wounded Knee

he’d never seen that color red come out of a living fertility statue

my veil is torn

the dog is dead

the natives have resumed their drumbeat

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Abelard and Heloise activism Americana animals Anne Boleyn astrolabe astronomy baseball writing battle beauty belief bibliophilia biology books botany California cartography cemeteries childhood Christmas chronology cinema civility coffee comedy comfort communication confections corsets crime criminal behavior dance death desserts destruction deviance digital art digital photography divinity domestic violence drawing ecology education electoral process English epicuriosity epidemeology Europe fairy tales family fashion fauna feminism festivities fiction film food forensics fucking funerals furniture geneology geography girl stuff good reads government government and a lack thereof gratitude Halloween happiness health Hell history holidays human behavior iconography Jazz journalism kindness kinetics Lent life literature local color love poetry medicine mindfulness mortuary sciences mourning muse museums Music mythology nature non-fiction Ohio ornithology painting pandemics papyrus parenthood parenting Paris performance photography physics poetic theory politics pop culture produce psychology public broadcasting publishing punk puppies reading red hair in the morning, fucker grab a cab relationship studies relationships religious studies reproductive rights rituals romance science science writing seasons self-care self-love sex sexism sexuality shitty shit shooting stars Short Stories slang society sociology sociopathology Southern Gothic Southern Living suicide technology thanatology the arts The British Royal Crown theatre theism theology tomes traditions travel writing Uncategorized Urban Legends vice war waste weddings women words writing

Poof* Take MY water

https://youtu.be/eg2Kw1jIXOw

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Americana art cemeteries childhood chronology comfort family history journalism local color mourning muse Ohio Southern Gothic writing

exposed cobblestone

it’s never quiet

in the city at night

however i’ve found

if my boots are planted quietly

amidst 3am lamplight

standing in space once occupied

by a storied brick house where my

great grandfather aged 90

lived and died

i can hear elm street recalling sadly

that he left for the hereafter

decades before i arrived

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Americana Art cemeteries childhood comfort death divinity family festivities history humanity mourning muse nature poetry pop culture punk Southern Gothic

such willful animals

in death

our ribs remain skyward

like hands

cast to heaven

in prayer

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activism addiction Americana childhood deviance family feminism Hell history journalism Kentucky non-fiction Ohio poetry sociopathology Uncategorized

a girl child

two decades ago i took

an overdue trip to Central Ohio

introducing my former mother-in-law to her six month old twin grandsons

we got to talking about Kentucky

as all transplanted Kentuckians do

we bounced gurgling baby innocence on our respective maternal knees having our own little gossip social

curling wispy baby hairs in her worn fingers

her laughter turned to pained breaths

as she shuttered out

a mortifying truth

about a bluegrass upbringing

she was discussing how she had been repeatedly raped as a girl by her father in Hyden, Kentucky

ran away to something worse at 14

how her first marriage ended when she found her alcoholic unemploymed coal miner husband was molesting her two little girls while she was waitressing to support the jerk

fleeing north to Ohio with them

to single motherdom with three kids in the 1960s living in a car until she could afford a place to rent

tears streamed down

her withered cheeks

as she said

“A girl child isn’t safe growing up around a family of men in the South.”

20 years later i think of her words and the women in my biological family

four generations of women who tried to protect their genitalia from one family member

the irony of being expected to smile and pretend

give forgiving hugs

that i’m the one who doesn’t feel comfortable coming to the Thanksgiving table

not the man who couldn’t keep his hands to himself

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affectation Americana analysis biology cemeteries childhood death family funerals geneology parenting psychology rituals self-care Southern Gothic suicide

you can’t get there from here

happy Father’s Day, dad

you were