***
animal’s strokefists cannot permeate the small treehouse in my mind where poppa’s smell of crushed sage and honey decorate the walls with warmth. i climb the heavy branches and press my feet against the grooves in the bark until i enter the soft cushion of his smell. it whispers love and i release my broken self and gently place it on the floor. i shrink into gingerbread size and enclose myself here.
soon i hear the sound of daddy coming home from work. i tip toe rush into his arms and he swings me around like a paper doll. he ruffles my hair and calls me sunshine. animal, daddy, and i sit at a tiny table stump. we eat banana nut bread together as daddy teaches animal the boundaries of touch. animal’s docile here and wags his head back and forth in awe of daddy. he helps me clear the table and then i put him in his pink cage. i give him a treat and pat his head and he smiles up at me.
we are only a family here — in the confines of these branches, the only place i can make sure daddy takes his lithium pills. daddy doesn’t beatbeatbeat animal (and animal, in turn, doesn’t beattouch me) because he can control the jazz in his mind before it becomes too frenzied, too intense, like it is about to ooze his brain cells out of his ear. he doesn’t slip so far below the bottom that he cannot get out of bed, loses his sixth job in the past three months, and leaves animal and i to find a way to keep the bill hunters away. he is our lion daddy here and finally he protects us.
–lissa
an extension of the characters in jasmine.
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Embodied Heart Mind 
Brilliant.
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Incredible. Every word.
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Wow! This really tugs at the heart strings.
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heartbreaking, I think of it as from a child’s point of view and how she sees her daddy, how her words don’t always mean the reality that she is really in, maybe she lives between reality and fantasy but always knew which is real, am I reading too much into this?
anyway great story
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Beautiful. As always. Love your writing!
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It’s pretty much a must have!
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What a different realm to dive into here! 🙂
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Wow; completely beautiful.
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A world in three paragraphs. wonderful
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I adore that you can create such beautiful images and characters. You always evoke all of my senses.
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as was the case with jasmine before,, this feels as if it is a piece of the narrator,, as if it is being dredged up,, and replayed at a later time,, full of the life that only hindsight can add in order to make a remembrance livable…
excellently written lissa….
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This is very moving and intense. Thank-you for sharing something with such profundity. Nikki
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poignant. touches my heart, truly the places you allow
your words to go, the honesty and braveness you possess
is astounding Lissa. And then to write so very well, each
piece clean and thorough, without a drop of emotion or
yourself left out. Again Lissa you have a delicate way with
your pen, that expresses sorrow but always within that
sorrow a hopefulness, a coping with the life we are dealt,
instead of whining you make beauty. Instead of skidding the surface you dive in . Love your poems and your spirit!
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Extension exercises are fun. And this one is remarkable . . .
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That is truly well written, thoughful and really different from the typical blog out here in cyberspace! thanks.
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Pretty neat stuff! Reminds me of my childhood.
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