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The Passage- Make the best Bad Choice

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The Passage- Make the best Bad Choice

Chapter 3 of We Swallow Light

Tree Langdon
Dec 13, 2022
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The Passage- Make the best Bad Choice

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It’s Tree Langdon from Medium and LinkedIn.

girl with bottle raised over her head as she makes a choice
Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash

We Swallow Light is a book of poetry that is arranged in an unusual way. Most poetry collections are sorted by topic or theme.

We Swallow Light: Poems for introverts and lonely hearts (Life Poetry)

These poems are arranged like a novel.

The chapters follow a story thread, similar to a memoir. Here are the chapter titles:

The Binding

Surrender

The Passage

The Rituals

Choosing Love


When I studied the Story Grid, I learned about the 5 commandments of storytelling. I’ve applied them to this book of poems.

The third chapter is The Passage, which reveals a Crisis that forces the protagonist to make a choice in the story. The Crisis forces the protagonist to reveal their true character. 

The protagonist has to choose between two mutually exclusive options — two bad choices. Each choice has meaningful stakes attached, so it’s not easy for them to go forward. Once the choice is made, they can’t go back.

 This is sometimes referred to as the: best bad choice.

Here’s a quote from one of the poems:

Forgive

“ I recalled the wrongs
 and sliced open half-healed wounds.
 I swam deeply in the seething pool
 and swallowed daily doses
 of reminders and remembering
 choking on the bitterness.
 My inoculation,
 a ward against hope,
 on guard against love.
 It shut me down.
 
 Lock.”


I hope you like this take on the third chapter of the book.

Get it here


On Medium…

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