The lion in her chest carries the child home

Years turned
like slow planets.

Whole seasons circled
the dark sun of memory
and still she walked.

A woman grown
from the long winter
in a house of breaking glass,
where every word
could shatter the walls,
and voices fell
like winter hail.

Yet
ladybirds and butterflies,
tiny armoured suns
crossed her skin
when no human hands
were safe.

Beneath the ruins of pain,
deep in the dark forest of her ribs,
something ancient stirred:
a lion
opening its golden eyes.

Not roaring.
Only warmth
breathing slowly
through the abandoned rooms
of her heart.

Years passed.

She walked through life
with a shadow
she could not name.

Until one day
she stopped running
from her own reflection.

She laid down the old weapons,
the quiet knives of shame,
the heavy stones of blame.

What had been laid
on the shoulders of a child
she returned
to the dark.

And for the first time
she did not turn that weight
against herself.

Instead
she opened her arms.
No longer waiting
for love to arrive,
she learned
to grow it
inside her ribs.

She walked back
through broken years,
through the dust of old fear,
to the place
where the girl
had vanished.

And there
beneath the ash of forgotten nights
she found the child.

Still waiting.
Still small.
Still brave
in the silent way
only abandoned children know.

The child in her arms
was light
as a wounded bird.

She lifted her gently,
held her
the way mountains hold rivers
without question,
without end.

Against her shoulder
the child finally slept,
held at last
by arms strong enough
to carry her.
Her own.

And the lion in her chest
walked beside her heart,
golden,
fierce,
awake.

Around them
the butterflies lifted,
small bright fragments of sky
opening their wings
in the dark.

And the woman walked on
through the broken gates of yesterday,
carrying the child
who had waited
all those years
to be found.

Behind her
the ruins fell quiet.
And the road ahead
was already light.