some stories hold

Such trauma

That in order to 

Tell them

You have to use a Chinese box

What, you ask, is a Chinese box?

A Chinese box is a 

Story

Within a story

Within a story

Not to be confused with 

Chinese handcuffs

(Which is a very different thing indeed)

For example:

Once there were some children who lived in an apartment with their (biological) mother and father.  They did not always eat.  Sometimes they were left alone.  The father beat the mother.

The loss was unbearable, said their foster mother.  The boy was mute.  The girl was cagey.

So small.  So damaged. So angry.

They called her bad mommy, bad mommy, bad mommy.

Because there was only the one.

One room, one closet, one subterfuge, one million wrongs

In the circuits of his mind

He tells the story of the bad mommy, who was (he says) too much drama.

As she pieces together the past she neglects the symmetry of hearts, circles, and peanut butter sandwiches among the survivors

Because, as an ordinary prophet once said–every trauma has its own story…

Within these concentric 

Chinese boxes.