The Beast

It is in the nature of powerful
beasts to be intimidating. They are
after all possessed with muscular
strength. Their very physical presence
is sufficient to make lesser creatures
shrink in awe and trepidation and to
exercise caution that nothing they do
will arouse the temper of the beast.
If that beast is a carnivore all the
more reason to tread lightly in its
presence. The beast knows that the
superior strength it is endowed with
and its rapacious appetite has few
matches. It swaggers in its entitlement.
Enjoying its own formidable reputation
there come moments of insecurity
and self-doubt when it wonders as
well why it inspires fear and not as
it would wish, admiration. Through
exploiting fear, however, it has amassed
advantages formerly taken by others
forcibly securing that most priceless
of assurances; the wherewithal of
survival whose imperative drives all
living creatures to their enduring 
limits, yet another existential need
eludes as none will companion it.