A Lesson in Herstory - The Lion(ness) Tamer

They watched from several thousand feet in the air as the cheers from the crowds grew louder and louder. After each act, they wanted more, tired of waiting, their anticipation growing to the point of frustration and beyond. I looked at them with disgust, this crowd, this filth...who were they to demand this and that, who ordained them to have their needs met, why were they here? I paced back and forth with these questions...

"Are you ready?" he asked

"There's never a time to be ready," I replied.

"Then it's always the right time."

We looked at each other guardedly...something in his eyes told me he was lost and confused...but I could not answer when he himself didn't know the question. I've travelled alot in my years, and there's an exotic air about me that very few can get a whiff of.

In the past I had had many roles to play, sometimes the center of attention while other times cast aside...but if I were to describe how I had "always" been, I would not have an accurate description, because there's never an "always"...just like there's never a "never."

"She always gets what she wants," I heard her say once. I was so amazed at this absurdity that I forgot to respond. There are so many things wrong with that statement I probably wouldn't even know where to begin. How can one always get what one always wants when one doesn't always KNOW what they want?

I continue to pace in this tiny space.

I thought, or assumed rather, than there was a natural order to things...life was simpler in black and white; there are wrongs and there are rights and MOST MOST MOST importantly, there are clear lines between the two. Not so much now.

"They are waiting, you know, they have every right to be here and you're doing a dis-service to them and to yourself by making them wait like this," he cried as he came in, fretting about as usual.

"She's not ready," he assumed as usual.

"Funny, I don't recall saying that," I curtly replied to them.

"Look, this is what we do, this is how life goes, so will you please stop delaying your act?"

"My act? Is it just an act? Is it a scene out of a play, is it a duty I must perform? And if not for myself, then who is it all for?"

They looked at me, dumbfounded. He mostly stared at the ground while he looked around and huffed and puffed. I had not fathomed such lucid stupidity.

I think he told him to leave because when I turned around, he had left. I stared at him, perhaps for the first time realizing that there was a barrier here, and he was on the other side of it. He spoke to me in a different tone, as if a different tone can change the meaning of his words.

"You know what's to come, no one can run away from the inevitable....somethings are the way they are, and no one had control because it's not about having control, it's about destiny. It's about the way we are, our very nature, it's our very essence."

"How pellucid...how very entertaining, pehaps they would prefer to hear your monologue instead?"

He looked at me, still not seeing me. I heard once that there are two types of women in this world, with curly hair and with straight hair...and curly cannot at the root become straight.

"What do you want me to say?" he ended up asking in typical fashion.

"Nothing." And it was true. I didn't want him to say anything because I didn't want to hear anything. I didn't want to hear the verbal vomit of the crowd outside, I didn't want to hear him plead, and I didn't want to hear anything except the roar that was echoing inside me.

All the noise is deafening. The spot lights are bright, burning my face. I want to turn them away and cool off in the darkness. I am wild, and need to run free.