Special: Dragons

When I was living the last of my youth,
People promised me I would lose my strangeness
When the time came
When hell froze over
When I grew up.

Having hard-won wealth in my hands,
Having worked until I fell abed,
Having felt the glances that come from it, my other
I find that they were wrong.

My otherness is waiting
As certain as the work, the wealth, the glances
Biting at my earlobes
Instead of what the world expects from me.

I hear it, night and day
It haunts my treasured dreams at night
It rattles the veins in my heart
Like a tornado shakes the telephone wires,
And I am left alone with the noise
And the damage.

No tender music on my lips
No more sweet, new words to share
No new worlds, tethered to my fingers, to create
No pencils across paper;
I am empty.

But let it be said, friends
My otherness is not dead.

It has not yet managed to be slain,
It didn’t fade into the west with Tolkien‘s elves,
And I will fight to keep it
Fight until the end of always.

Even with the dawn
When it weighs down on me
When my shoulders slump and my eyes tell you
Tell I haven’t slept for wanting,
I will not let it die,
I will not let it die.

If there still were dragons
The way that dragons lived to be,
I would be that dragon.

I would line my seeing eyes
With Tutankhamen’s kohl
I would line my heart
With the treasure-troves of men.

I would touch my scaled arms
With glittering gold, with shimmering jewels
And you would be agape at me
Plain Payton in immortal glory,
Dressed and scarred by battle.

I would earn your respect
If my eyes were lined with kohl
If my heart were lined with gold
If my tongue were lined with honey
If my heart were lined with knowledge
If my lips were lined with song
If my heart were lined like dragons’ were.

If I don’t have the scales
I have all the rest and more.

I would welcome wearied glimpses on my human skin,
If you would only look.
I would open my arms to you
If you had ought but blade to offer me.

I dare you now,
I call your heart:
Look.

Press your fingers to my arms
Close your tired, human eyes
And breathe the golden air with me.

Breathe,
Don’t Sneer,
And Look.

I, the dragon
Am right here;
Breathing golden air.