When the Lion Looked Back: On Broken Crayons, Falcon Eyes, and the Need to Be Seen

What does it mean to be truly seen?

We don’t outgrow the need to be seen.
We just get better at pretending we don’t need it.

But sometimes a story—or a line from a stranger’s blog—uncovers something buried.
Something like a boy, a crayon, and a lion no one believed he drew.

I was four. Maybe three.
The kitchen linoleum had these raised dots—tiny circles that felt like Braille for bare feet. If you colored over them just right, your lines got texture. Your lion looked like it had come from the wild.

And I wasn’t scribbling. I was coloring. There’s a difference.

A broken brown crayon, no paper left.
I laid it sideways and smoothed it across the lion’s body like paint. I left the mane open for yellow. I filled the rest with everything I had—focus, breath, wonder.

It looked alive.
And I knew it.

I held that lion in my chest all day, waiting for my sisters to come home from school.
And when they did, I showed them.
They didn’t believe me.

“Mom helped.”
“No way you did that.”

I looked to Mom for backup—my witness, my alibi—but she was already on to dinner or diapers or dishes. She didn’t say anything.

And I cried.

Not because I had failed,
but because I hadn’t—
and no one saw.

That day, something quiet settled in me.
Not bitterness. Not anger.
Just a stone in my pocket.
A whisper that said: You can be good. And still not be believed.

I’ve been coloring lions ever since.
Pressing wax to paper, hoping someone sees more than just a picture—
sees the soul behind the wax.

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This week, I came across a reflection at Falcon’s Nest | Come Heal,
and a line stopped me cold:
“Sometimes silence screams louder than praise.”

Yes.
Yes, it does.

It reminded me that what we really long for isn’t attention.
It’s recognition.
Not applause, but someone who says,
“You. I see you. That thing you made—you made that. And it’s good.”

So here’s our shared prompt:
What does it mean to be truly seen?

Falcon’s Nest and I are each offering a response.
We invite you to do the same—in whatever form fits.
A poem. A moment. A memory. A drawing of a lion.
Share it on your blog, or just in the comments.

We see the world as we are, yes.
But sometimes—on clear mornings or in quiet kitchens or under falcon eyes—
we’re given the grace to see as we were meant to:
truly, tenderly, and well.

Tags: being seen, childhood memory, broken crayons, creative healing, quiet courage, unseen artists, storytelling through art, inner child, falcon’s nest, what it means to be seen, vulnerability in art, lion on linoleum, soul behind the wax, WordPress reflections