Cow meat. Shellfish.
Touching pork and alcohol.
Red lipstick on strict Baptist women.
Entering the temple with your street shoes on.
Walking on your mother’s white carpet
with your street shoes on.
Genital piercing. Genital mutilation.
Showing your face. Showing your ankles.
Cutting your hair.
Sex. Porn-a-plenty. Masturbation.
That one kink no one talks about.
Having other gods before me.
Cooking cabbage in the office microwave.
Dishonoring the corporation.
Tattooing little children blue with bush thorns.
Cultural relativism.
-M.
(The prompt was “taboo.” I knew at some point I would find a use for my sociology degree.)
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Published by M. Ashley
I am an essayist and poet. My work has been rejected by some of the finest journals in America. Fortunately, it also gets accepted from time to time and has appeared in equally fine journals such as Word Riot, Inlandia, Brew City Magazine, and SageWoman, among others.. In 2002, I won the Academy of American Poets Prize for Vanderbilt University.
For no good reason, I possess an unnecessarily dark humor which is why being third generation California Inland Empirian delights me so. My gods are weird. I once won $350 for writing a smartassed essay on “why the wise use of water is important in my daily life”. I am undoubtedly the Greek god Hermes’ special snowflake. I’m pretty sure I got into college via a series of fortuitous clerical errors.
When I had to grow up and get a real job, I decided against it and stayed a writer. I have worked many odd—and I mean odd—jobs to support my habit: PR writer for country music hopefuls, resume massager, WalMart fitting room attendant and switchboard operator, and telephone psychic, just to name a few.
I am also albino. That's why my psychic gifts are so strong. I traded in my pigment for magical foresight, because that's how it works. It gets all technical. Trust me. That's totally how it works.
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M. N. Ashley 