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Claudia Batiuk

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2020

Stories (13)

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18 Followers

22 Following

13 Stories

223 karma pts

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No Promise

Submitted to Contest #311

My journey to self-reliance and healing was a brutal and painful battle, in the front lines. My armor was honesty and my most powerful weapon was willingness. I stood still were silence screamed in agony and fear took aim. However, I still rose. Each step forward earned me a scar. My breath was a rebellion against my enemy addiction who wanted me to be claimed by death.Now ten years later I no longer have to depend on anybody or anything. I stand strong. I won the battle and celebrated my independence time and time again. I celebrated for ot...

3 likes

The Becoming

Submitted to Contest #310

I often say "ABRACADABRA" because it means creating with words, he told me. "Its Aramaic and means I will create as I speak. You can write a new story, create a new life," his voice continues to echo in my memory. "You are the most loving person whom I have ever met,” he told me. “Control is not real, you can create with your word, pen to paper that is real.” He sat across from me and smiled. He was always smiling, so confident and calm. I just realized that he never provided his name to me. We have met for the last four months to convers ov...

7 likes

My Yearning is a Wistful Moment

Submitted to Contest #309

“The insanity,” I was walking fast and thinking even faster. I walked into the past through a door which emotional pain had locked a long time ago. Now, I swung that door wide open. I had this insane neighbor who had nothing better to do than focus on what was going on in my business. Oh, wow where is my mind going?My therapist kept asking me to breath. She said for me to walk her through my past experiences slowly. She said: "I want to learn how I can help you to heal your trauma."I am swerving between the present, the past and the future. ...

2 likes

Strawberry Moon

Submitted to Contest #308

Recovery, Magic, Mental -Health From an early age on, I was always interested in the mystical. Magic was and it still is the ultimate escape. It was in my late teenage years that I began studying Wicca. The craft was lots of fun, and the College was called Sacred Mists. I was a member of the Mists for ten years. Closer to the end of the ten years my addiction resurfaced, once more and I strayed off the spiritual path into the darkness of addiction. I did not return to studying Wicca, until many years later. It was one night in June of 2022...

4 likes

The Inescapable Phone Call

Submitted to Contest #306

“This is the last time that I am calling you and tell you to come home.” The voice of my mother is shrieking at me. “As usual,” I think, “she is on a good one and hysterical." I stay quiet and let her scream. It's easy now because she is thousands of miles away from Los Angeles.I am sitting in our Hollywood apartment on Franklin Avenue, on the couch. My four Swedish roommates and I stole the couch out of the lobby of a building on Hollywood Boulevard. I am smiling, about the couch and what my mother would scream about knowing that the couch ...

4 likes

A second of desperation

Submitted to Contest #305

“Boarding starts in 5 minutes.” The voice over the speaker sounded muffled. I am aggravated because I am still tired, well, I am hung over from the night prior. It is only six a clock in the morning. I am still in Austria, and I am waiting to board a plane to Los Angles. My friends are sitting right across from me. We made the decision to run away from home. Our Parents did not know that we planned on never coming back.The constant arguments with my abusive mother amongst other family and social factors have finally taken its toll. I am done...

5 likes

A second of desperation

Submitted to Contest #305

At the intersection, I could go right and head home — but turning left would take me... At the intersection, I could go right and head home - but turning left would take me to a place of no return. The tickets for the plane were in my right back pant pocket, my passport was in my handbag. It would take one second to make a different decision. Once second to choose going home over leaving a country, a continent, a so-called home. I think: "Whatever, goodbye to all the people who are not helping. I love this land, and I love the culture but t...

4 likes

Serenity, Acceptance, Courage and Wisdom

Submitted to Contest #303

Spencer and I sat at a coffee shop and had an intense discussion about people who feel like victims, God, recovery, experiences and choices.“You just do not understand I did not have a choice.” This sentence is used and abused, and people are not willing to take responsibility for their actions. My friend Spencer and I disagree with people who think that they are victims. We both worked on our recovery and we both are many years free from victimhood.“Enough already. I tell you that everybody has a choice.” Spencer loudly and excitedly exclai...

5 likes

Emotional Intelligence precedes Understanding

Submitted to Contest #302

TW: Contains themes of abuse and traumaI was once in a predicament. Years ago, I made the difficult decision to leave Austria and move to another continent. This decision was mostly but not entirely based on my abusive family and my insanely mentally, physically and sexually abusive mother. I know dear reader this is a concept which is difficult to grasp. Yet, this is a tiny part of the story of my past. Today I live in today only. I rarely look back. My mother, well the women who gave birth to my half siblings and me was a mentally defectiv...

5 likes

Uncovered and Discovered

Submitted to Contest #280

“I was wondering why you waited so long to tell me the truth. Why did you wait until now? Until I proposed to you?”“John, you did not listen to me in the first place. You never listened when I said that I have to tell you something about me and now it has come to this point."“Well had you been upfront from the beginning, on our first date then we would not this conversation right now.”“So, you mean to tell me that you would have still gone out with me if I had told you from the very beginning who I was?”“I am not saying that. I am not sur...

9 likes

TT Never Learned

Submitted to Contest #278

It was late in the evening on a Thursday, and I was still at work in the detox facility. I am the owner of the business. It is a detox treatment facility for females and their children who suffer from addiction. I was cleaning for the holiday season and in the middle of decluttering the donation closets at my work, my phone rang. Ithought to myself: “I hate cell phones where are the good old times?” The phonecall from Spence was anything but pleasant. Mt friend TT was laying on herdeath bed. This call came so unexpected that dropped the...

13 likes

The Maleficio Benefice

Submitted to Contest #277

 – Be hopeful all ye who enter. -I know, I know, they call me Maleficent. Nobody in the human empires remembers or reminded humans, that my name is Benefice. However, you all who read this must understand that Maleficent is the name humans gave me. I went from Benefice to Maleficent, after I stood up for myself and helped the fairies stand up together against human oppression. Sadly, I must say, it is humans who surrounded me since I was little, who decided to turn on me and my fairies, humans turned into our enemy. Or did they? Maybe t...

17 likes

Suddenly We

Submitted to Contest #276

Looking over my shoulder, I walked fast, faster and out of the establishment, a well-known bar in West Hollywood named “The Rainbow Bar and Grill". I began running, I slightly sped up on the sidewalk a little faster, still looking back and suddenly came to an abrupt halt. “Ouch” I said, “what the hell”, I had run into someone on the sidewalk. A tall man standing solidly grounded, body firm posture, outside the building next to the Rainbow. I thought “damn” because I kept looking backwards instead of in the direction in which I was running, I...

9 likes