UNWOUND

Kids cannot turn it off, the trouble. They will search and push, create discord, act out. Like a tulip bulb planted upside down, a child will spring out backward, grow down, twisted and slow, with all the extra effort, to fight their way through the dirt, to find the sun. Children and bulbs do not just stay put. They do not simply acquiesce, close off into a non-existence, realizing they just got planted wrong. Children are hellbent to reach the sun. Measures will be taken. Trouble will come. Backward growing children and tulip bulbs fight their way through all the dirt, to eventually stand, bent, twisted, pale, and slightly misshapen. They stand amongst the others, in a bright row, uniform, but for the outlier.

They do not recognize the strength it took to find the light, or how much that strength will help them stand taller, be brighter, when the troubles are unwound. Backward we wind back down, through roots and grubs, soil and worms, pain and shame, to turn their bulbs around.