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Life, Left Behind, Versions One and Two

Life, left Behind, V. I

She left the farm at fourteen - 
	doing her part to save her home.

She traded fields of corn and flowers 
	for the inside of a cotton mill.

Traded milking for spinning
	and a churn for a spool of thread.

She embraced that life, 
	for all her life,
Never knowing that in return for her sacrifice
	She’d be labeled a lint head, 
and find herself alone and broken 
	at the end. 

Life, Left Behind II: Family

She left home, 
	when she was just fourteen. 
Followed her sisters and her brother 
	to a new place - 

They went to save the farm.

	They sent money home - 
saved the farm, 
	and kept a roof over the heads 
of their parents and younger siblings.

But they never went back home
because life wants to be lived from the inside,
	and when you’re in a place, even a strange place,
it soon becomes your place
	and takes the place of home.

So home became a mill village,
	and life revolved around a cotton mill.
Fields of corn and flowers
	got traded for flower boxes on the porch. 

Strangers became friends,
	then lovers, then husbands and wives.
Kids came next, and suddenly, the farm 
	was where grandma and grandpa lived.

Visits and special occasions 
	brought them all back to the farm.
But it was no longer theirs - 
	not Home.