"Rooned" was my word, was the pit of girlhood, styled with my native Southern moan. And it was a tongue pushed out of me, a voice to disinherit, in order to put on more romantic tellings. These two poems give some context to my unconventional spelling of “ruined” and offer story to a girlhood stressed with foregoing the native curiosity and wildernesses of a child in order to form her into a “Christian lady.”

Thank you to Editor-in-Chief Anna Sandy-Elrod and Poetry Editor Shannon Finck of Birdcoat Quarterly for giving these pieces some family in Issue 4. Read the whole issue here.