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Sunday, February 9, 2014

Lion Tamer

One day she batted her fake lashes and told me that she hated writing. And I just smiled that smile we make when someone speaks on a subject on which they understand very little. How sad that she didn’t realize that words aren’t just letters and sentences aren’t just words. That words are lions, and pens and tongues the whips cracking in fluid succession. That real readers hold their breath because they can feel the steam of the lions’ beating body boiling out onto their tucked noses as their brains balance between the beasts’ golden lips. And that the ringleader, with the snap of a single syllable can lock the jaws on exposed gray matter, can wake the apathetic, can remind us that we’re human.