19 Comments
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Andrea Thorfinson's avatar

This was beautiful. Dreamy, wise, and quietly disarming. I love how you used the lion to mirror our own assumptions back to us.

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Tahir's avatar

Thank you, Andrea! I’m glad it reached you. The lion, in its own way, offered the same mirror back to Mario.

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Storm Whisperer's avatar

I love this so much. We all have a lion inside our souls. Great read. ~ Nerra ⚔️⚡️⚖️

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Tahir's avatar

Thank you, Nerra. Yes, that inner lion is always there, whispering in storms and in silence.

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Venus Faye's avatar

I love this! I have often wondered about lions and our souls. They feel very similar to how our souls might look. Lions, eagles, griffins, dragons...all feel like soul family.

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Tahir's avatar

Thank you, Venus. I love the way you describe that connection. These all feel like symbols of the soul, each carrying a different kind of ancient wisdom.

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Kiran Bilal's avatar

Perception shifts when side shifts

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Tahir's avatar

Absolutely, Kiran. Sometimes all it takes is a small shift in perspective to see the world in a completely new way.

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Outtamydamnmind's avatar

This one pulled me in the second I saw the lion. Something about that kid looking into the mirror and seeing power looking back… yeah, that hit home.

I loved the way you played with instinct vs. identity the whole “do you know what you are without a mirror?” thing lingered. It reminded me how often we learn who we are because someone else reflects it back… and how wild it is when we finally see ourselves clearly.

There’s a softness in this piece and a warning too: stop defining everything, stop over-naming the things that are supposed to just be. Some truths don’t need language they just pace around inside us until we notice them.

Really beautiful work.✨

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Tahir's avatar

Thank you so much. I’m glad the lion pulled you in and that the mirror moment awakened the Leo inside you. You captured the core of the story beautifully.

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Aster solenne's avatar

Amazing piece, Tahir!!😳💖

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Tahir's avatar

Thank you.

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AsukaHotaru's avatar

There’s such a lovely wonder in this — like a dream that pads softly back into the morning with golden paws. I adore how the lion gently turns into a mirror for being itself, as if wisdom decided to take the shape of a bedtime visitor just for one night. It left me smiling the same way Mario did at the end.

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Tahir's avatar

Thank you, Asuka! I love how you put it, a bedtime visitor with golden paws. Don’t we all wish for that kind of visitor to be our guest at night?

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AsukaHotaru's avatar

That’s so true, Tahir~!

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Dawnithic's avatar

Your story is beautifully symbolic. It feels less like a dialogue with a lion and more like a conversation with the deeper layers of the human mind.

The lion exposes many truths, even the hypocrisy of humans: when an animal eats another animal, we call it “cruel,” but when we eat fried chicken, it becomes “normal.” That moment in the story was powerful.

The entire piece is a reminder that sometimes the deepest conversations happen within ourselves, and that we humans spend so much time naming things… yet we rarely learn how to simply be.

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Tahir's avatar

Thank you, Waseem. I am really glad you unpacked the layers in the story. The lion’s voice came from that quiet place where we question our own assumptions, especially about what we call ‘normal.’ You captured the heart of it: many of our deepest conversations happen inside us, long before we speak them out loud.

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Dawnithic's avatar

Of course, if we were living in the jungle, we probably wouldn't even forgive a lion. We are very cruel inside, is a lion worse than a wolf?

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Tahir's avatar

If we were living in the jungle, we might be the deadliest of them all.

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