I am the permanent pause that ends conversation. History was beat and bled to fit into a village, and I think it’s dead now. I think it’s buried. Other than home-schooling and a little pyrography, a healthy distrust of law and society- I’ve given mine nothing of my tangled identity. Maybe my grandkids will pick at the threads, weave a story worth telling. But those threads for me plait a line to be trod, abandoned, or toed.