Illustration from: The Lioness You can change your future.
The Lioness: The Inevitable Silence
Once there was a girl at heart, one that’s truly never felt
a loss so close it could turn her world upside down.
I can
see her through the puzzle pieces, with each placement I get closer. I try to
call her forward, but my voice won’t allow words to form upon my lips.
There
are shadows in the corners. Glowing lights in rooms with no lights on.
My name being called, brought in by the wind. My senses are
seeking comfort, where they can find it.
I
should be able to rest, but silence is loud. Silence makes my heart pound as my
head screams just breathe.
My mind racing as my imagination kicks in when I know it’s
time to do a task I no longer need to do.
This is when I am awake and alone,
in my dreams it’s a little calmer but the lioness is there waiting for me to
break through the darkness, as I piece together the light needed to replace the
loss I hold so closely.
I hear her calling me, I am so
close to breaking through this darkness. With each puzzle piece, happy memories
replace the darkness, the light shines through giving me hope that the darkness
will not last.
Sometimes the light starts fading as
my head once again yells at me to breathe. But I won’t give up, I try to
replace the fading pieces and my puzzle starts to form the picture I seek.
It helps when I remind myself to
take a deep breath, redirect my thoughts, tell myself I can do this and when I
make it through the lioness will be right by my side.Then I can choose to talk through my feelings
and keep my mind busy with positive thoughts.
I question why I need to replace
the puzzle pieces each day. Shouldn’t placing them once be enough?
The lioness reminds me: Change and
grief take time to get used to, when you keep placing the light on top of the
dark, you can slowly push the darkness to the back of your mind, but that
process takes time. Even then one day, you may need to remind yourself that in
dark times the light is not far away, you just need to call it back to you,
because it will always come back when you take the time to try and understand.
My name is Heather Clay.I am the youngest of three. One brother named David and a sister named
Angie.We have two parents Richard and
Tammy. If you view us from afar, we look like a loving family, but up close
there is sadness.
I thought I would tell my story. Excuse the lack of detail,
but I thought it better to skim through my life story, as to not make you pity
me or think me something I am not. It’s better that way…for me at least.
My sister and I are less than a year apart. Our brother is
two years older than us. All three of us were close when we were younger, our
parents loved us, and we were happy. We saw our relatives often and played with
our cousins, while our parents hung out with our aunts and uncles. Then one day
we packed up and moved across the country and left everything we knew behind. I
was around five then. Away from our aunts and uncles, cousins, and everything
we knew. I started to notice small things about my parents that I didn’t notice
before. At first, I thought nothing of it. Until one day, a few years down the
road, when my parents were in another room and I started to hear sounds like
whispers through the wall as I tried to sleep, then came the knocking as the
whispers stopped, footsteps took its place as a new voice…male, echoed across
the house.
I’ve never heard this particular voice before, of course
being the youngest I should have been sleeping like my siblings and old enough
to know better, but instead I quietly opened the bedroom door and walked out of
our room into the hall, down the hall and around the corner until I reached the
front room. They didn’t see me, but I heard angry voices and the new man saying
something to dad, while mom tried to tell them to calm down. The man stepped toward
her, and I squeaked, they stopped talking as they turned and saw me. The man
said something under his breath to my father, looked back at me and walked out
of the front door. My mother a bit shaken but relieved he left, brought me back
to my room. That wasn’t the last time I’d be seeing that man. A few months down
the road and he was back, the exchange between him and my father didn’t take
long, but whatever it was they were doing didn’t sound good. Unfortunately, this
wasn’t the last time I would see him, but before the next meeting came, we
packed up what little we could and left to go back to Hackensack, NY. I was
near 10 by this time, it took us 5 years to come back for good. At least I
thought it would be for good.
So, here we are 10 years old and, in a couple, more years I
will be in middle school.I will learn I
am no longer daddies’ little girl. My brother will no longer be his
happy-go-lucky self and my sister will become quiet and fall into step with
whatever happens just to not be seen. To everyone’s disappointment and or
relief depending on how you see it and from whose eyes you see it through, I
will still be me. But let’s not jump too far ahead.
A year into us living back home, (by home, I mean in the
state in which I was born and raise for the first 5 years of my life), the
knocks on the door started back up, almost every night a visitor. With each
knock, a smoke-filled house. I no longer left my room after the first few
times, because I started to feel weird each time I went out from behind my
closed door and then I would wake up in the morning and not remember sleeping,
for an 11-year-old, this was not a normal thing, so I’ve heard. Staying in my
room, with the door closed and a blanket stuffed against the crack would help a
little, it would relieve me of the thick smoke outside my door, and the stares
of the newest strangers.
Four years of constant partying by my parents and sometimes
me and my siblings. It wasn’t hard, we could sneak off with whatever we could
grab because party supplies were everywhere and never in short stock. By now,
being a teen, I could always get one of the strangers to get me a beer or two.
Not that I couldn’t get it myself, but this at least stopped my father from
yelling at me to stop mooching and buy my own. Did you guess by now I wasn’t
daddy’s little girl anymore?Good, that
means you are still with me and paying attention. My brother is now 17 years
old and never usually home and he has pretty much turned into our father. With
this I don’t mean when he loved me, or even when he was just nice to me, I mean
the new version of the father I have come to know. Together they are always
“teaching” me my place and my sister is stuck in the middle. Luckily the middle
child is usually ignored. Nevertheless, once I “learn” my place, she is there
by my side passing me the blunt to kill off some of the emotions that ran
through me, in turn which my emotions cut off it also helped with forgetting
the pain that lesson caused me.
I wanted to leave, I always wanted to leave but I never
stayed away. I always went back hoping my brother and father turned back into
the people that used to love me. It’s a dream and I must hold tight to it, or
I’ll become lost like my mother and silent like my sister. My mother never
speaks anymore, she just stays away and when she is around, she takes their
side to stay out of trouble. I know it is because she believes if she doesn’t stick up for me it will save me from being punished more. But little does she know; I
would fight harder if I had someone on my side.
My once loving family is now full of smoke and mirrors,
hiding hatred from the outside world and yet we are still together. When my
father gets himself into trouble, we pack up and we run from whatever issue is
closing in on us. We can never stay, yet we always move to the same states,
across the country and back again. So, on top of my staying, I don’t understand
what he is thinking when we run… Do the issues they try to avoid by running
disappear or do they just get taken care of when we are gone… It is scary that this
person I call father is capable of anything. It is scary that this person I
call father allows me to get pummeled, and even roots for more, has enough
power to just get rid of any issue that gets in his way. Maybe that is why I
stay, at least this way I stay alive, at least for now. In a years’ time, I
will find out just how scary it can get. My father and brother will be high as
a kite on who knows what and my sister, she will try to rescue me until she
can’t.
But before we get to that point, I do find happiness in the
form of a reader. I call him this, because when I first met him, he was walking
out of a used bookstore with his face in a book, I was walking with my head
down trying to hide my healing face and we slammed into each other. It was fate
for he pulled me from darkness at least for small moments in time. His name is
Otis. When I am with him I can make-believe my family is like they used to be,
but underneath my smiles and laughter I am just scared he will find out the
truth about them. The truth about me, how I choose to go back, how I choose to
cover my bruised with makeup and hid my scares under clothes. How I built a
mental wall to hide who I truly am. What will happen when he finds out? Because
next time I may not be able to hide it…
I’m only 17 years old and I am already tired…so extremely
tired.I smoke to kill the pain, and I
drink to forget the past. I mentally chained myself to this family if that is
what we can still call us. The ones that raised me to understand without them,
I’d be nothing. I’ve seen the other side, the side that dragged me up out of
this mindset that I keep fogged over. But with him my mind slowly clears, and
the fears of my father seize to exist.Otis may not know the extent of my family issues, but I couldn’t hide
every bruise and he had to be told a small piece of that truth. He promised to
take me away, he told me I was stronger than them. He told me to take my sister
and run, because he promised he would be there to take us both in.That night I went home with my mind spinning,
trying to imagine that other life…free of drugs, free of drunken memories, free
of strangers staring at me like I was a magazine.I didn’t tell him everything as I said, but
just enough for him to understand I needed help.
I waited for my sister to come into our room, as she walked
in, I told her to pack a bag, we were leaving for good. While she packed, we
tried to work out the best way to tell mom so she would understand why we must
go, and that we wanted her to go too. But she knew she never would leave him or
her son, no matter how bad it got because she believed if she stayed, he, too,
would stay safe. My sister and I had our backpacks stuffed with clothes,
hygiene products, money, and a few keepsakes… My mother wouldn’t come, but she
didn’t try to make us stay. She knew it was bad for me and only getting worse.
She knew me and my sister together would be safer than we would be apart. Our
plan was to head to Otis’s apartment until we had a strategy and a way to keep
ourselves safe and out of reach of our father’s grasp. After this Otis will
deserve my true story, the whole story, the one I am still scared to share with
him. What happens if I do get the courage, will he ask us to leave? I’ll need
to wait until we have a set plan in motion…just in case. Right! Back to what I,
or should I say we, were doing. We kissed out mother goodbye and told her we
would let her know, somehow, when we settled. With one last look at our home
and mother I turned the doorknob to leave and ran right into my brother.
They must have been to their dealer’s house, he reeked of
smoke, his eyes bloodshot and speech a little slurred. His anger to my bumping
him was deadly and I knew at the moment I didn’t make it out in time.
David pushed me back into the house with my dad following
behind him, saying nothing about the shove David just gave me.“David, stop!” He had me in his grip again, I
couldn’t even push him off of me to get away. Angie must have known something
bad was going to happen, as she tried to pull me from his grasp. She couldn’t
get him off of me by pure strength, but her jumping into help me, throw him off
enough to escape and move further away from him, Angie wasn’t that lucky
though, he shoved him back toward our father, and he smacked her for
interrupting my lesson. David’s focus was back on me, this time he was like a
runaway train coming at me, “Angie!” I yelled for her to help. But she looked frozen,
and our father wasn’t going to let her try again. I dropped my bag so I could
free my hands to try to stop him, but instead I tripped backward and fell to
the floor, before David reached me, I was able to scramble back to my feet,
which was probably a bad move, because he grabbed hold of my shirt and pulled
me to him and he growled, “apologize.”
“I’m sorry. David, please.” He gave a laugh and shoved me
again, this time into the wall, my elbow hit first then the back of my head. I
knew he wouldn’t stop even if I didn’t fight back, so I did my best to ignore
the pounding in the back of my head. I put my hand out to try and stop him
again, but then I heard it… Dad was cheering him on, “That’s my boy! Teach her
a lesson.” I saw the spark brighten in David’s eyes with the encouragement and
as he swung his fist, I dodged trying to get to the door, maybe I could just
run and not look back. I looked toward the door, but with the second glance I
felt his hand connect with my cheek. I was on the ground again, not by the
knock on my head or the cheap shot he just gave my left cheek, but by pure
exhaustion. The more I fight the worse it will get, the less I fight I still
get beaten. David has tossed me like a ragdoll this time, with my sister being
stopped by our father, as our father cheers him on, while yelling “you can’t
win you good for nothing bitch.”
We were so close to escaping; we could have made it if we
didn’t try to get our mother to leave too. All for what? She’s not even helping
me; she hasn’t even come into investigate. I looked toward my sister, and I
could see she was scared for me. I looked at my father and he’s grinning like
he’s watching a comedy on tv and David, my once sweet brother, so lost and
desperate to please our father. I felt bad for us all, what went wrong to get us
to this point? I already know, I just didn’t want to admit it… I’m weak and I
try to please them all. I need to just worry about myself. With this in my
head, I take what energy I have left and run at David and before he even knows
what happened I shoulder check him and I sprint toward the door to freedom.
To learn more of Heather's story keep an eye out for Beyond the Willow. Heather tells Otis everything, but did she tell him in time? Or did he learn everything too late?
When you read it stimulates your brain improving connectivity, empowering you to empathize with other people.
A book that will allow you a to improve your connectivity and help stimulate your brain, causing you to connect the story with your own story would be The Lioness: You can change your future.
I am not saying this to sell books BUT because I love when stories help others think about what they read and apply it to their own lives.
Yes, it's a children's book, but the story will resonate no matter how old you may be!
I hope you have a beautiful day 💗 💛 💕
One day, even if I just show one person what truly is, then maybe, just maybe, it will open a road for others to finally see too.
Words are just words until someone reads them and those words make them think. Then those words hold meaning.
I write for me, but if someone happens to take my words to heart and allows them to open their mind and relates those words to their own lives, then I will know.
The Lioness: You can change your future.
By Patricia Egan
Illustrations by Patricia (pegan) Price
This story is about a child named Ari. Ari is scared of the unknown.
During Ari's dreams, she finds a Lioness. At first, she thinks her dream turned into a nightmare, but as the dream develops, Ari discovers everything that was once scary is really not as it seems.
This is where Ari learns she does not need to be afraid. As her dream progresses, she discovers how to uncover the truth and to not judge based off fear of the unknown.
My name is Grace Rose Fallen. I am a weaver of lives, stories of past times, wondering worlds as a glitch in time.
I see those around me, I feel what they feel, and I can't help but try to help them when I feel deep down, they need it. In order to do this, I weave myself into their stories and I try to change their ending.
This all started when I was younger, and the streetlights came on. We all remember those fables, right? Be home before the streetlights come on because after dark creatures come out to play. Well, I can tell you right now. Those stories we thought were to scare us, were really there to warn us.
This night, I was walking home from my friends, which was just around the block, The sun started setting earlier than it normally did, so while I was walking home, the sun started setting and the streetlights started flickering. I started to walk faster, as I tried to make it home before they stayed on, and I almost made it. I was at the corner of my street, my house was halfway between the corners, I could see it. But the lights overhead shown down upon my head, taunting me. That is when I heard it. The tinkering of a bike bell, yet no one was around me, I thought maybe it was a windchime, I did see one on the way to my friends earlier that day. But there was no wind. Now at this point I was stopped at the corner, not sure why I wasn't running home. It was probably the slowest seconds pause of my life, because once I snapped out of whatever it was that stopped me from reaching my house, no longer had a hold on me, but I saw out of the corner of my eye movement, as I turned to look what it was, that is when I saw her, she had to be my age, she was walking alone after dark, she had her arms wrapped around her body, she was looking around like she was waiting for someone or something to attack her. I was about to yell at her to run, but I was too late shadows started to swarm, and in a split second they cleared, and she was gone. The shadows kidnapped someone right before my eyes. I've been weaving myself into other stories ever since, while trying to outrun those same shadows from my past.
As I wove my stories, a substance unseen by man found me and I woke up covered in it. My emotions disappeared, I was walking these worlds I wove in a daze, not caring about the danger I started placing myself in, just to feel something, anything, again. The problem with the fog, as I have learned one night as I slept, is that it doesn't cover you as you sleep and everything that happened while awake and under that fog, comes back all at once and you are overwhelmed by those emotions that were once hidden. This is how they grow stronger, because as you sleep and those nightmares start attacking your dreams, you want to wake up to escape the pain. But be warned, when you wake from a nightmare before it ends, those shadows that created your nightmares escape into your world and hide until the lights go out once again. They become real, they become the story book characters you grow up reading, but they no longer represent what they once did, they are distorted, mirror images and darkened by shadows.
Do you want to learn how these stories all played out? Follow me as I jump back into my past to face them all head on, with a goal to just survive them once again.
Chasing Willow Book Three of the Willow Series, being written now.
Until then please read Under the Willow Book One available now and be on the lookout for Beyond the Willow Book Two.
This way you have the stories that lead to the introduction of the one and only Grace Rose and how she came to learn and understand she had a choice to make. Save her friends or live her life as it was.
At first glance you would never know there were lurking shadows just
waiting for their next victim. Some of these shadows were only darkness through
a filtered mind. One that is always waiting for a silent moment to move in and
cause panic to strike. Counting how long they were able to control the mind of
the soul now trapped in a soundproof room screaming for help, yet no one can
hear them.
Most escape with only a feeling of chains slowly tightening around
their heart as the lungs leak slowly, enough to cause their breathing to catch
in their throats. Then the victim is better, able to just shake it off and go
about their day.
Shadows blend into crevasses small enough to not be seen, quiet enough
to not be found, yet fast enough and sometimes stronger than one person can take, leaving the shadows to cause maximum damage. Sometimes those victims of the shadows are able to
drug themselves causing the shadows to work at a snail pace, allowing the
victim to control or block out the shadows completely. But drugging your fears
is only a temporary solution. Those dealers opting not to tell them in order to
keep the shadows away you must put forth an effort to take back the upper hand.
An indirect shoutout via
social media. Small statements in a limited number of lines that spoke so much
truth, it would be easy to ignore. Chalk it up to the hierarchy of needing to
focus on drama and not a shoutout to a friend that used to be, yet stepped
away from what? A voice in their head telling them it was not right to be
happy. Thank you panic inducing voices, we give too much of ourselves to everyday,
for not allowing this to just be.
But this day, the sun is
shining and playing peek-a-boo with the clouds, and I feel the call to walk
into nature to just breathe in the peaceful energy and exhale the negative energy we condemn
our minds to each day.
In the post I gave a vague idea
as to where I’d be and if it was seen and what I thought to be friendship was
once just that, then they would find me sitting on a sun bleached log, writing
or reading or listening to the sound of nature's calls with an extra water just
in case they caught on to the GPS coordinates, for a little Geocaching fun, of
where I would be located.
Latitude 45° 02’
56.40” N
Longitude -75°
58’
22.80” W
Sitting on this sun-bleached
log, at the side of a lake, enjoying the peeking sun. I couldn’t help but feel
grateful for having this, even if my shout out came unanswered.to be alone in a
world full of people rushing around can make you feel stuck, like you can’t breathe.
But allowing the hectic world to pass around you as you enjoy a five-minute
breather with someone you can be yourself with, that is a game changer, and
today… Today is the day I may just have this breather with nature blocking out
that constant shift all around me in their place.
I figured there was an eighty percent
chance the post wasn’t seen, but as I do, I came with a backup plan. In my
place a top this sun-bleached log I placed a simple token to claim my manifested
stories place in my memories with a simple painted rock of the moon and stars
with a time and date as to when I was there. Walking away I left everything
else to fate.
These are the moments we live
for. For they hold your heart and mind in a space of time allowing you to
create stories to bring to the world and allow people a chance to wonder what
it all really means.
You know that time in your life, when you feel as if the
world is crashing in around you…
I experienced that moment. To the extent of conforming to
those around me, just to get by…
Through the haze of years, which I felt self-doubt, I
finally found freedom.
Let us start from the point of no return. This is some of
my story.
My
name… Yes, that would be a must… I will go by the name, Humanity. I have
no set age. But I will chart the moments, to which I believe a time in point,
would bring me to the age of 20. Stuck behind a mask, I call sex. I
could choose either, but for story's sake, let’s just say, I am female.
You
found me at a crossroad, one that could have led either way. You found me in
a crowd, just trying to fade into the background. You, which goes by the
name Destruction; must have known… You must have felt it… that emotional serge,
which radiated all around me… You wanted my soul… But I didn’t know until
it was too late.
Collecting
strength, from those who do not show it… Making sure, they never hone it.You took a magnetic hold, on the one that the
stories all told, would be able to change everything, once she realized her
destiny… Today I would be the one, to satisfy your pain.
I
heard of you long ago…Those same stories told, of a predator which traveled the
world. A predator that had destruction running through their veins. Searching
for those which felt weak. A perfect target, to play the prey… Those that
had a desperation to understand, that which made them different… You took
over lands, and left destruction in your path.
A
manipulations treasure-trove… It’s true, I am the one which could allow
you to prevail. The one that did not understand the stories… The broken one,
which will bow their head, and take to their knees. Because the past haunts
them in their dreams, where silent screams, numb them to what’s never
believed… You believe this is what will make me not fight, and just trust
what you want me to see. So please Destruction, follow Humanity into one last
dream, and try to break me if you please.
Past
the thieves of present day, into the woods where I used to play. Stands a
willow, beside a cave which holds the key, hidden from Destruction’s
name… I tell myself there will come a day, to which I would learn this
stranger’s name. This day will lead me far away, from this dream I dared not
stay, unto a path, far from this place… Evil queens and villains in disguise.
Filled with drowning roads, slick holds, whirlpools of straggled dreams, with
islands never meant to last, but a foot hold all the same, for those who do not
yet know their way… This is my dream of what I thought to be true,
a nightmare hidden only by my blind eyes. Which are shadowed by lights dreams,
clouds of confusion, held together by the weeping mists, strengthened by
wondering faith, and unforeseen roads not far from my grasp, guarded by a
creature so bold, it devours anyone’s true paths… This creature was vial to
those whose faith wandered. This creature, with Destruction's help filled those
dreamer's heads with struggles of emotions, struggles of lost hope, struggles
that this small world where they resided, was all there was… All there would
ever be… So why try to escape?
But
I am a dreamer, and my name holds strong. This is where Destruction
faltered… See, I finally started to understand. Into those woods, to
which we started, stands a willow beside a cave. The key, hidden from
Destruction’s name, is of the one the stories told, which has the power, once
her destiny was realized, to change everything… I learned this stranger’s name,
the one that will lead me far away, out of this dream I dared not stay, unto a
path, to a castle made of glass…
Her
name is Humanity… It was always me… This power that led you to me… Has become
stronger in your wake. I played Destruction’s game, and I finally am
going to make my way, with this power growing stronger every day. That vial
creature which blocks the way, is no threat to me, for my weakness is fading
fast and this newfound strength will guide me past…
Deep
breaths, as I enter this castle made of glass, through a hidden door, which
holds the secrets I came to seek. Timid times called back to me, but I
found myself wanting more. I found what held back the fears. Covering me with
what appeared, hidden eyes saw just my disguise. But in this castle made
of glass, disguises don’t last forever…
Inside
a mirror, all our pasts hold truth. To a kingdom exchange was told to be soon…
I held my mirror close, until there were just two, and just like that…my mirror
left my hand and so did the truth… As I looked down, in its place was a past I
had not foreseen.Within this mirror,
a rescuer from this new day, has come to show me a life to which I’d stay, with
an ending as old as fairy-tales time.
What
little girl, didn’t grow up wishing for her prince? I watched those movies of
the prince that saved the princess. Those movies are what made me dream…
But these fairy tales were not as they seemed. For within each one was a
meaning to be found…
Bringing
me back to the woods where I use to play, from under the willow I now lay,
devising a plan to block these thieves of present day and never letting
Destruction form another way… For this family, with love, will learn
these ways. Humanity now rules these days.
As for me I have learned the game
and now I must say no prince needs to rescue you in this day. For you are stronger
than what they say and you, yourself
will rule these days.
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