Mj Pettengill

I have unveiled harrowing scenes, imagining food that is not fit for pigs, and placed myself at the table.

I re-read Abigail’s letter, starin’ at the words, “county farm.” It was as if I had learned of her death.

I spend much time exploring dark places—places where we are typically unwelcome. There are no complaints here. I signed up for it. I made...

He knew that I would not take part in blamin’ everything that ever went wrong, since the Garden of Eden, on Eve.

Facing fear in a rigged system while raising children—keeping them warm, fed, and sheltered—is downright perilous and unpredictable.

I keep my 'darlings' tucked away. I do not kill them entirely.

It was hard to believe that my feet were on the same earth where Mamma’s feet once were. I wondered if the earth would have known that...

It is much like tending to your inner garden and watching it grow.

They would take you out and beat you senseless if they found you hidin’ in a car. I only got caught once, and that was enough for me.

With this new-found freedom came the challenges of women working for pennies a day while boosting a handful of already influential families

I longed for the time when God shined His candle about my head as in the days of my youth.

We continue to pass along the grief and pain of those before us, and in time, forget their origins. We inherit their losses.

When we finally summon the courage to view our past, we may awaken from our troubled dreams.

I reached towards the wreckage of my whole existence.

The practice of auctioning the poor is a form of indentured servitude, a custom in this country that dates back to the first settlers...

Buried deep in the bones of the earth, in dusty, misplaced archives, and scribbled in faded, yellowed diaries, their stories exist.

There was light there, in the homeland of old stories, but not enough. I had been there too long.

Where was God when it happened?

Reaching into the corners of uncertain blackness, I saw the dimmest light, that of a dying candle. It was enough to almost blind me.

That sacred site is an archetypal and genealogical vault filled with memories intended to be forgotten...