Main Lion: Part 1

"Main Lion: Part 1" By: Erickson

I look into my father’s eyes.
I took my father’s eyes.

A maned lion prowls the dirt floor. 
Its eyes hold miniature black galaxies of potential. 
They hold him back but provoke him further. 

Antelopes elope into flying skinny limbs – 
their side eyes still beam in determination. 
And a lion cub hunkers near dry brush. 

The dark galaxies evoke the feeling of being away. 
Away from home for a second too long,
A bubbling at the bottom of your core.
A cinnamon hot chocolate heart burn.

Is this the feeling of growing up? 
When two houses split, God parts the organism right through the middle.
When the siblings become singular. 
And the cub faces everything as if it was an Enemy, alone. 

A festering heat whittles white yellow 
Brush into spiked spears. 
Any perfume, or beginning of saliva meeting the air,
Dissipates in the dryness. 

The cub tussles with the smallest dehydrated bush - 
Tangling miniature paws, cracking cakes of dust
Off branches, while twigs snap in half.
Cinnamon sticks catch him, thorns entangle, 
and dead flowers collect him deeper. 

A male lion will often eat the cubs, 
eat the lineage, 
of another male lion’s offspring. 

But this child, the cub that now holds a scar from the bladed bush,
This one is called a name by the male lion- 
As the father’s own blood exists within him.
Monster paws rotate, and universes ensnare the son.

Suddenly the
Dirt path
Enflames a
Lighter vessel.
The sun’s
Glint enriches
Dead dirt. 

His gallop is that of a horse, a type of beauty lies on the surface. 
Beyond comprehension, it shouldn’t be within the lion’s nature. 
And the male slashes at the bush, 
Drawing black and red from the baby’s throat. 

Small lion limbs, felted things, are fragile.
The son beams with the etiquette of a slow blooming flower.
It is what the pollen sees when carried away
From its touch of pink.
“Is it allowed?” The cub cries.
A paw in the air, a whisker upon its face always being re-found.
Is it allowed?

He becomes coated in a bloody elixir.

Strength under 
Masculine fur.
The Mane-
A Societal Noose.
It steps
Away from
The baby. 

Yellow stained fangs 
Gritted teeth, muscles – but only ones it has had to grow to survive. 
“Nothing more.”
But the cub understands, “nothing less.”
It is the bloody elixir that defines the cub’s future. 

I look into my father’s eyes.
I took my father’s eyes.

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