Vachon Imagined

It reads like the diary of a little girl
who traded play for structure,
who traded sensuality for fear,
who traded wisdom and whimsy for obedience.

Every hair in place.
Every gesture measured, calculated.
Not just replacing play with nightmares—
she replaced herself
with scripture, anecdotes, raw detachment.

Play became torture.
Children became strangers
in the landscape of her own mind.
The feminine, the whimsical, the wise—all pushed out,
exiled by wagging fingers,
the pulling hypocrisy of a Catholic priest,
a Southern pastor, mouth full of fire, hands full of rules.

A woman ruled by men
who tear down kingdoms alone.
She could not bear children
the way a leaf bears its own thorns—
because she punished herself
for policy, doctrine, rule.

Everything became a rule.
Everything became a resume:
do this.
Not that.

And it lives,
still,
in the marrow of our society—
where those who refuse control
are marked, watched, named.

But no part of life will be forgotten.
No part will be healed
by dismissiveness,
by force,
by control,
or by mind games.

Everything remembered.
Everything accounted for.
Everything carried forward.