DearDearDiary;

I can’t seem to figure out what I just encountered tonight and I think I might be out of my mind. For some back story, sometimes when I can’t sleep I go sit out back at the family graveyard. I know it’s not like this everywhere, but here in Tennessee you’re allowed to bury your family right on your property. My family has owned this land for generations and there are 2 family cemeteries here. One that is more recent, the one where I usually hang out, it is well maintained and all the graves have nicely upkept grave houses and one that is much older, a few hundred feet behind the newer one, the grave houses have mostly rotted away and the tombstones have faded to a point where they cannot be read anymore, it’s separated from the other cemetery by a row of trees. I don’t keep that one up as much because I don’t really know who’s in those graves and they’re so old and dilapidated it would be a lot of time and money I don’t have to restore them. Anyways, while I was out at the new cemetery I heard crying coming from the old one. It sounded like a man, and like a very real man, not faint or ghastly at all. Peaking through the tree line I couldn’t see much but I saw a glowing light like maybe that of a candle. There shouldn’t be any other people in this lot, its private property so I am a little put off, but I’m not the only descendant of the people buried there, maybe he is older, maybe he knew them. I always carry the old pistol my papaw gave me when I’m out in the wooded areas of these hills just in case I wander into some wildlife that would rather make lunch than friends so I wasn’t too frightened by the idea of approaching the man I heard, but when I came through the treeline I felt my heart fall into my kneecaps as I was frozen by fear and confusion. It wasn’t a man. Hunkered over, scavanging through one the graves under an old decrepit gravehouse was a creature like I’ve never witnessed before, it looked like a coyote, but was humanoid like a werewolf. It looked emaciated and mangy, it’s head was mostly skeletal with barely any skin left, when it turned to face me I realized what I had seen earlier was not a candle but the orange glow of the creatures eyes. I could still hear the crying but it didn’t seem to be coming from the coyote thing. It raised one of its paws to its mouth revealing long, sharp, boney finger like claws. When I tried to move it screeched loud, making a sound as if a human were being torn limb for limb. I considered shooting it , but it didn’t move toward me, and I didn’t know how fast it was. It just stared at me a while before slowly moving on to digging through another forgotten grave. When it was no longer looking at me anymore I ran as fast as I could back to my house and locked all my doors. I’m still not sure what that was, when I was little my mamaw, a very traditional Melungeon woman, said that we make gravehouses to protect from a creature that devours unprotected or lost souls. She called it a D'gogwa and she said they come from humans who are cursed by their unforgivable actions like cannibalism, rape, slavery, etc. They are cursed to roam the earth, with an insatiable hunger, looking for souls to eat up. Was what I saw a D'gogwa? Were the cries coming from it or the soul it was eating? I’m thinking it’s time to clean up those old graves and give them new houses.

So glad I found this post, my friend just had a similar encounter and I knew I had wrote this down somewhere. That was such a scary night.

here is your gentle reminder that there are dandelions growing through cracks in the sidewalk. there is a fence lizard on the porch who is growing a new tail. there are trees growing through an abandoned house, branches tearing through the ceiling, ferns carpeting the floor. there is life pushing forward, pushing through. 

dont shame borderlines for things they cant prevent