To the fathers who did not deserve to lose their children
In the scream of loud resentment a chip was broken from a block of so called perfection: the birth of a lioness, by familial association as perfect as her creator, by terms of self indulgence as beautiful to behold, by norms of society as violent and dangerous as her bestial representation.
Each morning as the sun rises to illuminate the terrible ego found in roaring vain, she looks upon her predatory figure in a tainted mirror and readily believes the lies she beholds; no need for change or correction does she find there, no baldness to reveal her imperfections, no fleas in her tawny pride; she thunders with derisive laughter as she envisions those poor shadows, those foolish feline replications who try in such vain to mimic her unrivaled glory.
To think that her deadly smile could be duplicated, her blackened, primal heart be over shadowed by common cats. How could they hope to compare to the faultlessness of her flaws, the sinlessness of her crimes. How could they hope to compare to her, model of the she-lions, great queen of her kind, unrivaled in the reality she alone has fabricated?
She needs no rules, no laws of man: with unvelveted claws she rips through petty, needless ideals of maturity and empathy; leaping over them continually, they are continually beneath her.
With an ear splitting roar she affirms her perfection by drowning out opposing arguments, challenging ideals. With speed unrivaled she runs past salvation, past reality itself. With the eyes of an accomplished killer she chooses her next victim.
He found her with a thorn in her paw: the universe trying desperately to create balance. He helped cure her self inflicted wound and fell victim to her false beauty, and so her falsehoods. He bound her, cared for her, domesticated her, took her home with him to a new life, and thought he had saved her, poor animal that she was.
He showed her love and affection, she showed him her teeth. Undaunted, he chose to commit such a crime as to love an animal: a child was born of their deranged union, who, born screaming into the world as a mere mortal from perfection, could not hope to bask in the glory of the light that shone solely upon her mother. She was cast aside for the necessary items to fuel that perfection. She was cast aside without second thoughts.
He scooped up the child and shielded her from the cold, saved her from the storm, and tried to hide her from the mother, that vision of perfection, that dangerous, wild animal who would surely devour her innocence. But he had forgotten the fierceness of her heartlessness, the absolute firmness of her grip.
She found them in their solitude, their loving sanctuary, defiled and broken just as she had helped to create it. With jaws much stronger than his hands, hatred stronger than his love, the lioness tore the babe away from his fatherhood, his loving grasp. Then she turned her wrath upon him.
“Why?” he cried. “Such kindness I have shown you. Such adoration I have given you. Why have you taken that for which you care least?”
“For the same reason that I take what I choose,” came the answer, followed by a flash of claws, a piercing scream: his heart lay upon the ground, in full sight of the screaming babe.
“Why?” he gasped again. “How can you commit such crimes even as I offered you salvation? Even as I offered you love?”
She hid behind the laws of man and smiled her twisted smile, knowing he could never retaliate, blood covered, heartless, childless: defeated.
With a roar of laughter to topple the sanctuaries that still held the innocence of man, she pushed the poor child into the dirt beneath her murderous feet, subjugating her as if no bond existed between them. With a roar of laughter to shake the foundations of the earth, she trapped him beneath the remains of his former home, ensuring his inability to escape.
With a roar of laughter to mock the will of God, she spoke the words before striking the fatal blow:
“Because I am a lion. What else could you ever have expected?”
(2012)
This is an astoundingly accurate biographical account of the mother of my child, her feelings for our daughter, and her actions that have proven those feelings. It is based on an old proverbial story that I guess is told in AA meetings, where a man finds a wounded snake, brings it home and nurses it back to health, and the snake bites and kills him. When the man asks why the snake bit him, the snake replies "because I'm a snake," which is the natural behavior of a snake. Though I have known several snakes that apparently found this stereotype insulting.