Gryphons In Flight
She closed her eyes to stop the sudden heat of her tears. His kiss had been so deep and sweet that her lips still burned with it.....even now, as she sat alone in the darkness of her lonely room and remembered with startling clarity the fact that he'd finally chosen to fly.
It had always been a tumultuous relationship....burned like wildfire through both of them whenever they were together. But, her darkness and her shame had pushed her into a web of lies and fears that had eventually forced him to break his ties to her. Because he loved her, and he couldn't heal enough to learn to hate her....because wanting her made him crazy, and he couldn't deal with being out of control for one moment more.
And, she let him go......she didn't have a choice. "A Tiger Can't Change Its Stripes", they'd all said to her....said ABOUT her when they thought she couldn't hear them.....said it so many times that even though she knew she would never lie to him again...never risk that emptiness again...She couldn't help shivering and wondering if maybe she'd been deluding herself with this promise of a "REALITY". That's why she let him go, you know....let him fly away....because she has learned all too well what it means to be caged by your past...or caged by your pain....and she would never ask him to feel that way for her, or about her.
So she sits in a room full of his presence, but empty of his promises, and drowns for a moment in the void he's left within her. She does not try to stem the tears as she remembers meeting him....watching him blossom from a man with secret desires who was afraid to even whisper them...to a man whose desires are central in his being and who does not feel ashamed to admit to the fantasies that drive him. She pushes back her hair as she puts away the picture she'd so recently grown bold enough to frame and sit beside her bed....a soft kiss on the face she knows is handsome, but he thinks is simply passable....those are lips she'll only kiss in dreams from now on. Her eyes linger for a moment on a poem that he'd written...full of hate and anger, directed at the woman she'd been...and she smiles at the changes she's made in such a short amount of time. She hums a song into the quiet of the room....a song she knows he'll always link with her...and cuddles a stuffed animal that SHE will always link with HIM....the tiny black and burgandy gryphon that smells of lavendar and surprises.
Tears of pain change gradually to tears of tender reminiscence as she rolls memories of his wonderful whispers in her head, and as she contemplates the miracle she knows his life will be....with or without her. Her blue eyes catch a mirror and she stares at herself for a seemingly endless moment before she discovers a truth that has escaped her for far too long......The Gryphon REALLY loved her.....honest to god, truly and completely, soul-deeply....he had loved her.......and, that means there's something inside her worth loving......now, she's simply got to find it and shine it and make it grow. And, because the Gryphon also taught her strength and the art of surviving even when the box is closing and the lid is pushing down tight, she know's she'll do alright.....she knows she'll make it through the night.
Gryphons In Flight........You never REALLY know the beauty and majesty and magick of the Gryphon...till you see it spread its wings and fly away.