Category Archives: Recovering

The Reversal

She took it home, bathed it, fed it, and made a bed for it in a little room — to make it feel safe. It didn’t feel safe. So, therefore, and nonetheless she gave it 100 baths, 500 sleeps, 1,000 meals and practically exactly 10,000 soft hugs.

The lower life forms recover slowly, if ever, but will seldom enough, if tended to and more than somewhat almost. This is true of the higher ones too.

However, things tend to reverse when given attention and to shift sideway or even flip. Or if not, then maybe it is simply the case that the distinctions made in the first place do not turn out to be correct after all.

Regardless, one day the higher form herself unsettled, lost her way, began to gush, squint her eyes, raise her voice, agitate, dis-say, un-hinge and down-speak to one of the higher life forms in her family.

Then it was most certainly and precisely that the lower life form crept unnoticed up to the higher life forms side, and taking her arm in its mouth, held it, and looked her in the eyes. Time and care passed between them.

It seemed clear, obvious, at this time and in this exact moment that the higher life form was to drop back, hold in, stop, calm, seek safety as directed, somewhat immediately and acutely softly.

She did, almost and enough, at that time and the following time too. After that the two lived together in relative harmony, caring for each other as needed, not really sure anymore about distinctions between things higher and lower.

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The King Who Ate Twenty Poison Apples per Day

Once upon a time, there was a very brave king who got very sick.

He was so sick, he went to the wizard’s castle. The wizard took one good look at him and said, “You will have to eat the poison apples.”

The apples came in the mail. They were so poisoned the king had to sign for them. No one else was allowed to receive them or even touch them.

Picking up his first deadly apple and taking a bite the king said to his queen, “My life will never be the same again.”

It wasn’t.

The wizard loaded him up on poison apples. After a time he was eating twenty per day.

The wizard sat him on his throne and said, ” I’m going to kill you so you can live,” and he drained his blood.

Then the wizard locked him up in a small room in the castle and fed him one poisoned apple after another. The king got so sick that no one could see him, not even the queen.

The king lay silent in his bed. He was alive, but he wasn’t. He slept a poisoned sleep.

Then a princess came to him, in disguise, and bending over him, she filled him back up with his own blood.

When he awoke, the wizard was there.

“You are alive,” said the wizard, “but you will have to eat the poison apples every day for the rest of your life.”

“I’ll eat them,” said the brave King, “so that I can be king and love my queen and play with my grandchildren again.”

And he ate them, every day, and he lived happily ever after — for a while.

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Smoke

Once there was a girl who took a smoke and she went on a wuffle. When she got back, she took a slunk.

When she came up, she didn’t feel so good so she took another smoke and then off she went wuffling again. Wuffling changes you, and she came back changed. She knew new stuff and didn’t know old stuff.

Smoke, wuffle, slunk; smoke, wuffle, slunk — and one day she didn’t know much of anything.

So she went to her travel agent.

“You’re a wuffie,” he said rudely.

“No ticket, no ride,” she said and winked, and she decided right there to take a snizzle.

But she wasn’t done yet.

Smoke, wuffle, slunk; smoke, wuffle, slunk. Now she was absolutely distraught, so she went to see a trusted friend.

“It’s serious!” he said.

“I’m moving on now,” she said.

“Do you want some help?” he asked.

“Sure, “she said.

Then she rose from her chair, wafted across the room, smiled slyly and drifted out of the window.

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The Hurt Thing

Once there was a girl who found a hurt thing. She picked it up and put it in her heart.

There in her heart, it hurt, like a baby bird fallen from its nest.

The police were called. They couldn’t help. One of the officers said to her, “Hopefully you can pull yourself together and put this thing behind you. ”

She did that, the best she could, but the hurt still lay within her.

So she went to church. “You’ve sinned,” the church said.  “You have to repent, and never to do  that again.” She was struck to the quick, and she did as she was told, and said what she was supposed to say.

She actually felt better, but when she left, the hurt thing still flapped a broken wing within.

She looked around desperately for more help. She went to a therapist.  “You need to talk about it,” said the therapist, “and grieve.”

She did, and it helped, but still the hurt didn’t leave her.

A friend told her to go to the doctor. She did. The doctor gave her some pills. They helped, but she could still apprehend the hurt thing, as if it was calling to her from the room next door.

She lived, and worked, and took care of herself, and survived.

Years later, she met someone who after they had gotten to know her a bit, asked her what was wrong.

“Nothing,’ she said.

“What happened to you?” they asked.

“You can tell?” she said.

“Yes,” her new friend said, “it’s in your eyes.”

“I put some hurt in my heart,” she said.

“I am so sorry,” her new friend said. “I did the same thing.”

And then, just like that the new friend climbed into her heart.

“What are you doing?” asked to he girl who had tried everything, shocked and alarmed by what was happening.

And answering from inside of her heart, her new friend said, “I’m holding your hurt.”

And then they both began to cry.

“I’m so sorry,” the one in her heart sobbed, that this happened to you.”

There was some more crying, both of them were crying, and then there was a long silence.

Then the girl who had tried everything said quietly, “It’s not hurting right now.”

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A Drop

Once a drop of rejection fell on a young girl’s head.

It soaked into her skull, oozed through her brain, dripped through the roof of her mouth and fell onto her tongue.

She swallowed it.

Down her throat it ran and settling for a moment in her stomach, it soaked though the lining and slid into the lake of rejection pooled within her.

She flooded.

“It was just a drop,” said her mother. “I can’t understand why she is going on and on about it.”

“Clearly, she is overreacting,” said her father.

“She can be a drama princess,” said her friend.

She went to a therapist.

“Our psychic aquifers are made of individual drops that fall on us one at a time,” she said, “and trickling through us, find their way to all the other drops inside of us like them.”

I’m drowning,” said the girl.

“We drown,” said the therapist, “one drop at a time, and we dry one loving pat at a time too.”

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