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Daily Deviation
Daily Deviation
July 28, 2012
Lion Heart by ~sunrise-dreamer
Featured by BeccaJS
Suggested by blackandwhite-panda
Literature Text
It is building up deep within her fragile body like a heaving monsoon forming over the dry, cracked, heavy heat of an African savannah; an unforgiving and all-consuming storm desperately willing to drown out its less than fleeting welcome. Flickering with ceaseless coils of skin-searing energy like a grey-faced fugitive's adrenaline stricken heartbeat, it is not a bringer of life, but a threat to it—and even the most reckless are hardwired to take flight in the face of such a colossal and uncompromising foe.
Beyond these white-washed walls, the world would have her believe that she is brave, a lioness, an exception confronted by the inevitable; but outrunning the storm is no longer an option, and she has never felt more betrayed. Slowly, it is emanating from her heart and through the pulmonary artery—there, free to roll and crash, it engulfs her lungs in a terrible thunder that rattles the brittle bones holding her together. The ominous feeling that has settled into the pit of her stomach is no secret, and she doesn't know how long it will be until everything finally, finally gives way.
There is a tempest inside of her, and her golden lion's mane is thinning.
-
A certain sort of poetry exists in the way that she dreams, all glinting sunspots like liquid gold that blind her mind's eye and great, slumbering giants with velveteen paws and soft, damp noses bigger than her entire torso. A far cry from her usually barren desert, this dreamscape undulates with the quiet breaths of the sleeping land beneath, each hill shaped with the imprecise features of a kind face. Sometimes, just to remind herself that she can, she will run up over their crowns or roll down over green foreheads until her journey ends with crushed dandelion lashes and the bridge of a mossy nose, gasping in unison with them as they begin to stir from their non-existent but everlasting slumber. (That is, of course, until their eyelids clog with dirt and tendrils of newly emergent, multi-coloured undergrowth that traps them shut. As far as she knows, they have never yet quite managed to awaken.)
There is no thunder here.
In its place hangs a perpetually quiet ceiling painted with white and blue and often, just to break the silence, she will stretch up into the sky and roar. During her waking moments, with the storm's havoc curled around her vocal chords, that sound lingers ever-so-slightly out of reach. It is satisfying to hear her own mighty voice and this way, when it echoes back and reverberates through her, she can carry its strength back to her cold, white bed.
After all, she thinks, someday a lion's roar might be needed somewhere other than in this place where nothing ever wakes, especially not herself. Regardless, she would give anything not to have those sunspots become nothing more than just reflections from too-bright windows onto too-tired eyes.
-
No, that won't work now. It's too fragile.
They breathe the words by her bedside, and they flicker black and blue over her feeble sleep-feigning form. She hasn't truly been told any of this, not yet, and her frustration is insurmountable. After all, it is her lion's heart that is failing, not any of theirs.
She makes easy reading of their dishonesty through the furrows on their faces and slight falter their lips make as each carefully chosen word is set free in a flurry of comforts and reassurances. Sinking into the ignorance of the best possible intentions, they blunder forlornly through each exchange like vain antelope at a river crossing. In spite of this, she allows them to persevere, because she has realised that the words they are keeping from her may well be harder for them to articulate than for her to hear.
Permitting them to dictate the woes of her ailing survivor's heart is her penultimate act of kindness.
-
I'm sorry. There's just no time.
When the monsoon finally arrives to spine-shattering, earth-shaking applause, there is simply nothing that can be done. This storm would inundate even the dream world and, with open eyes and mud dripping down their sodden cheeks, the grass faces would cry with wonder at this first rain to end all others.
There's no time...
Not, that is, until a golden lion's roar splits the monsoon in two.
Beyond these white-washed walls, the world would have her believe that she is brave, a lioness, an exception confronted by the inevitable; but outrunning the storm is no longer an option, and she has never felt more betrayed. Slowly, it is emanating from her heart and through the pulmonary artery—there, free to roll and crash, it engulfs her lungs in a terrible thunder that rattles the brittle bones holding her together. The ominous feeling that has settled into the pit of her stomach is no secret, and she doesn't know how long it will be until everything finally, finally gives way.
There is a tempest inside of her, and her golden lion's mane is thinning.
-
A certain sort of poetry exists in the way that she dreams, all glinting sunspots like liquid gold that blind her mind's eye and great, slumbering giants with velveteen paws and soft, damp noses bigger than her entire torso. A far cry from her usually barren desert, this dreamscape undulates with the quiet breaths of the sleeping land beneath, each hill shaped with the imprecise features of a kind face. Sometimes, just to remind herself that she can, she will run up over their crowns or roll down over green foreheads until her journey ends with crushed dandelion lashes and the bridge of a mossy nose, gasping in unison with them as they begin to stir from their non-existent but everlasting slumber. (That is, of course, until their eyelids clog with dirt and tendrils of newly emergent, multi-coloured undergrowth that traps them shut. As far as she knows, they have never yet quite managed to awaken.)
There is no thunder here.
In its place hangs a perpetually quiet ceiling painted with white and blue and often, just to break the silence, she will stretch up into the sky and roar. During her waking moments, with the storm's havoc curled around her vocal chords, that sound lingers ever-so-slightly out of reach. It is satisfying to hear her own mighty voice and this way, when it echoes back and reverberates through her, she can carry its strength back to her cold, white bed.
After all, she thinks, someday a lion's roar might be needed somewhere other than in this place where nothing ever wakes, especially not herself. Regardless, she would give anything not to have those sunspots become nothing more than just reflections from too-bright windows onto too-tired eyes.
-
No, that won't work now. It's too fragile.
They breathe the words by her bedside, and they flicker black and blue over her feeble sleep-feigning form. She hasn't truly been told any of this, not yet, and her frustration is insurmountable. After all, it is her lion's heart that is failing, not any of theirs.
She makes easy reading of their dishonesty through the furrows on their faces and slight falter their lips make as each carefully chosen word is set free in a flurry of comforts and reassurances. Sinking into the ignorance of the best possible intentions, they blunder forlornly through each exchange like vain antelope at a river crossing. In spite of this, she allows them to persevere, because she has realised that the words they are keeping from her may well be harder for them to articulate than for her to hear.
Permitting them to dictate the woes of her ailing survivor's heart is her penultimate act of kindness.
-
I'm sorry. There's just no time.
When the monsoon finally arrives to spine-shattering, earth-shaking applause, there is simply nothing that can be done. This storm would inundate even the dream world and, with open eyes and mud dripping down their sodden cheeks, the grass faces would cry with wonder at this first rain to end all others.
There's no time...
Not, that is, until a golden lion's roar splits the monsoon in two.
Literature
saudade
Last week, you showed up with the thunder on my doorstep.
Your voice was so drenched with the rain that I almost didn't recognize the way you said my name. It hung in the air like an incomplete sentence, like something unfamiliar, like you were so lost from trying to find everything we left behind and piece it back together that you couldn't find me in your heart anymore. It was pouring and the power was out and I was so tired of watching the world fall apart from outside my windows that I let you back inside my arms and inside my senses, and your bones were shaking as you clung to me and told me how good it felt to come back home.
There wa
Literature
I Mean to Get You Alone
You have sharp
pulse-elevating teeth
the stuff I imagine heart attacks
are made of
I'm bent on selling you a handful of smiles
specifically crafted
to distract you from the fact that
I have almost nothing to say
and now you're steering this conversation
in a direction that suggests you've
forgotten that I
don't watch movies or do much of
anything but work which maybe
explains why one glass of wine gets me
wrapped around you
car to streetlight
crash style
mangled limbs
breeding curious onlookers and my insurance has
expired
you're leaning in and all I can think is
I don't have insurance
Literature
The nature of inspiration
When was the last time
You heard the word 'erection' in poetry?
I think it was a while back
Between the pages
Of reform
And Odyssey.
I mean "humans" don't even play
Bogies anymore,
Or just rise to the thirteen year old tree-house
Inside us all
Where politeness is a foul facade
And we aren't afraid of our fingers.
No...
Instead
We prioritise the silhouettes
And forget
The way pressing pen into paper
Made us so
Steamy
And out of
Breath.
Inspiration isn't a pretty, pristine river...
It's magma
Flowing
With taboo,
Glowing
Like irradiated
Lemonade
And it's about time we became
Mutants too.
It's about time
We l
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Featured in Groups
I like to think she made it -
perhaps that lion heart that was her undoing
saved her in the end.
-
Featured:
Here and here by %WritersInk
Here, here and here by !featherback
Here and here by =DailyLitDeviations (And as Pick of the Day!)
Here by ~flawedfairytale
Here by =Sammur-amat
Here by `LadyLincoln
Here by `SilverInkblot
Here and here by *imaginative-lioness
Here by !hazeltown
Thank you all so much for your support of this piece --
I am eternally grateful.
-
A DD...
I never, ever, ever imagined this. Ever.
To !blackandwhite-panda (!Lacewinged-Beauty) and ^Beccalicious, thank you!!
© 2012 - 2024 Concora
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I've been trying hard to cope with a breakup with someone who fits this lioness so well... I love the piece, and it helps me, too 