ROAR June 16, 2020 – Posted in: Nature and poetry

ROAR

I died a thousand times at the mere thought of them.
The blinding pool of light swarming around me did not help my dreadful situation even one bit.
Rather, it turned out as though it was gloating over my misery.
The faces of the things I feared shrunk me an inch lower every time they confronted me.
In my frozen state of fear, the thought of escape crept into my thought after a very long time.
A stream of tears ensued.
Surprisingly, the light of hope beamed from the reflection of the drops of tears
That had streamed down sluggishly from my eyes.
I wiped off my eyes once again to be sure my eyes were not playing a trick on me
Even in the teary state of my eyes, I saw a lion staring at me from the reflection of my tears on the ground.
A shift occured in my thoughts..
Strength surged up in me after fear had dwindled and jettisoned it from me for quite some time.
After exhaling a heavy breath on seeing the image of the lion, I tried to roar.
The first few sounds I emitted were in sotto voce.
Others after that began sounding like a purr.
The more I remembered the image of the reflection I saw in my tears,
The more I tried to exert some more pressure on the air that escaped from my lungs.
One day, as I opened my mouth for my usual attempts,
It dawned on me that things were no longer the way they used to be.
I saw the fetters around my feet falling,
The ice around me defrosting
I was no longer dwarfed by my fears.
Why?

Because I roared.

Photo credit: Steve Winter