LizardViolet
Silver Member
I wrote this extended metaphor the other day. I've had a tough couple of weeks, but I'm doing better now. Just wanted to share it with others who have been there.
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You grew up in a difficult country. The valley was called Anger and the mountains were called Pain. I think your parents had grown up there too, or moved there when they were young, and they didn't know there was anywhere else to live. The stones from the mountains called Pain were everywhere. You stepped on them and you slept on them and your parents fed them to you because they didn't know there was anything else to eat.
When you could, you ran away, but the stones were still in your belly and in your heart and shards were still stuck in your feet. It is hard to leave the valley called Anger, but you found a path. You weren't sure where it would lead. You met a girl, and for a while the two of you lived together, but you were still in the valley called Anger. The shards in your fingers hurt her when you touched her. At last, after many years, she could not stand the pain any longer and she asked you to leave.
You followed the path for a while again, and you began to climb out of the valley, but the foothills of the mountains called Pain are still treacherous.
I saw you there, and I came to you. I followed you into the difficult country. I had never lived there before. I had scarcely known it existed. I listened to your stories, and learned a little of that country's geography. I started to be able to recognize the people who had grown up there when I saw them on the other side of the mountains. I was surprised at how many there were.
What I did not expect was what happened to me after I had stayed with you for a while in that difficult country. I did not live there all the time, but I started to pick up shards from the mountains called Pain in my own feet and hands. You touched me with tenderness, but the shards in your fingers sometimes cut me.
You gave me gifts of love and trust, precious and rare things that you had kept hidden in a secret place. Because I did not grow up in that difficult country, I gave you my gifts of love and trust with open hands. You held them carefully, but the shards in your fingers sometimes wounded them.
I found some secret knowledge, books that are rarely spoken of in that difficult country. In the books I found a map that those who grew up there, who believed they were trapped there, could use to find their way to a kinder, easier place. I learned that there were guides who could take a person along the narrow path through the mountains called Pain, who could steer them along the right turnings and protect them from rock slides and gaps in the road. Some say that along the path is a healer who can extract the shards of Pain from the bodies of the travelers. Some say that walking that path makes a person strong, so strong that the shards fall away by themselves.
I live here with you now, and I see that there is blood on my face and blood on my hands, where those tiny sharp stones have stuck. I won't leave you. I promised this.
I have seen the guides. One of them took a few stones out of my hands and my heart. But I think you still believe you are trapped here. I came here to be beside you, but I don't know what will happen to me now. I won't leave without you. My family waits for me on the other side of the mountains. I won't leave without you. I am doing my best not to forget the way.
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You grew up in a difficult country. The valley was called Anger and the mountains were called Pain. I think your parents had grown up there too, or moved there when they were young, and they didn't know there was anywhere else to live. The stones from the mountains called Pain were everywhere. You stepped on them and you slept on them and your parents fed them to you because they didn't know there was anything else to eat.
When you could, you ran away, but the stones were still in your belly and in your heart and shards were still stuck in your feet. It is hard to leave the valley called Anger, but you found a path. You weren't sure where it would lead. You met a girl, and for a while the two of you lived together, but you were still in the valley called Anger. The shards in your fingers hurt her when you touched her. At last, after many years, she could not stand the pain any longer and she asked you to leave.
You followed the path for a while again, and you began to climb out of the valley, but the foothills of the mountains called Pain are still treacherous.
I saw you there, and I came to you. I followed you into the difficult country. I had never lived there before. I had scarcely known it existed. I listened to your stories, and learned a little of that country's geography. I started to be able to recognize the people who had grown up there when I saw them on the other side of the mountains. I was surprised at how many there were.
What I did not expect was what happened to me after I had stayed with you for a while in that difficult country. I did not live there all the time, but I started to pick up shards from the mountains called Pain in my own feet and hands. You touched me with tenderness, but the shards in your fingers sometimes cut me.
You gave me gifts of love and trust, precious and rare things that you had kept hidden in a secret place. Because I did not grow up in that difficult country, I gave you my gifts of love and trust with open hands. You held them carefully, but the shards in your fingers sometimes wounded them.
I found some secret knowledge, books that are rarely spoken of in that difficult country. In the books I found a map that those who grew up there, who believed they were trapped there, could use to find their way to a kinder, easier place. I learned that there were guides who could take a person along the narrow path through the mountains called Pain, who could steer them along the right turnings and protect them from rock slides and gaps in the road. Some say that along the path is a healer who can extract the shards of Pain from the bodies of the travelers. Some say that walking that path makes a person strong, so strong that the shards fall away by themselves.
I live here with you now, and I see that there is blood on my face and blood on my hands, where those tiny sharp stones have stuck. I won't leave you. I promised this.
I have seen the guides. One of them took a few stones out of my hands and my heart. But I think you still believe you are trapped here. I came here to be beside you, but I don't know what will happen to me now. I won't leave without you. My family waits for me on the other side of the mountains. I won't leave without you. I am doing my best not to forget the way.
