“Schooled by the Algorithm,” “”Hippocratic Oath,” and “The Shadow of the Dryad”

It told me that I have a problem

I have to solve, that I’m the puzzle.

I could feel it study me, as I

researched myself. It taught me

if I go deep, it’ll all work out, a

mastermind of configuring the pieces

of my psyche, which it said in Greek

means “soul.” And if I want to be a Stoic,

I must learn my way to wisdom, and that

one day I’ll act, and finally know who I am.

If I revive this heart again, as if it were

a seasoned lost bird bound flightless

by broken wings, then I will set free

a part of me again, knowing the shots

still fire and the inevitable descent

is frightening. But if I leave it here

with it still looking up at the sky, I’ll

see it longing to soar. If I don’t mend

the bird, not only will it slowly die,

but I may as well be the one to shoot it.

She heard a call from a distance, and knew to pack her bag, a bag

of twigs and leaves, berries, bark, and water from the spring. She

would heal him before the dark took his light. She would cast

any spell, mix any potion, chant any hymn, with whatever calloused

soul she had been left with, from bruised beginnings, which lead

to the careless lethargy that defined much of her journey, to casual

nights at taverns, where too many ales left her bleak. But when

the sun would relentlessly rise, she knew she was meant

to be under the abundant canopy each morning. She learned the old

ways of believing in the persistence of oak and the curiosity

of a burgeoning buck still unaware of how prized it is. Through

the sticks and crunch of autumn foliage she trekked boots to knees,

up the hillside and over a bridge made of broken ceder, and at the hut

he was in she stopped at the threshold suspended by a vision

that haunts her still, one where she knew despite what trick for which

she had the skill, none could keep the Reaper from his prey.