Cauldron Anthology Issue 3: Year 1 Collection Cauldron Anthology Year One Issue FINAL 1.17.18 | Page 39

and watched as men made a mockery of all that was great and good.
And I remember.
With the voices of all the Kalip Women who ever were and who yet hope to be calling out for
me to stop, I stand, laughing, from my chair and move towards the ancient-eyed man. My red cloak
flies out behind me, caught by a strong wind and carried away to some other place. My wings, so
long neglected, spring from my back. My lioness body curls down upon itself, its strength gathering
with all that I had forgotten, all I have been afraid to remember.
I am no longer afraid.
I leap from the steps of the big stone house by the Great River, my clawed feet reveling in the
gritty earth’s crust as my roar proclaims all that I am: the lioness, the serpent, the guardian, the
monster. The Kalip Woman.
I am not the one who guards the Temple.
I am the Temple.