The Sleeping Dragon

[Kestrel McLoughlin]

Inspired by Shane Koyczan’s “Insider”, and Mae Dean’s coming out story.

 

The Sleeping Dragon

 

There is a light in my body that gets warmer and closer to the surface all the time. 

I call her The Sleeping Dragon

For one year, and you can guess which one,

I tried relaxing a muscle I had been flexing my entire life

And suddenly she flourished so much 

I was a layer of parchment crumpled over her

Like a hastily wrapped present for all of you

 

Bits of bloom burst out of me

Arching up to drink sun

Wooshing down to gather rain

And always invitingly purple

 

There came a day

One unrelenting day of discovery

when we spoke for 20 minutes

About what to do

 

I kept shouting to myself "I'm DONE"

But I couldn't decide exactly what I was done doing

We spoke together

She knew I would never ask her to fade

It is not within my nature to make a woman smaller for my convenience

Before I could tell her not to she unbloomed

And was undetectable

Utterly gone, whether for the winter or forever

 

It wasn’t safe for her. I have no right growing her in a home with insufficient sun

It would just be a slower death than staying in the soil. There’s at least base nourishment there.

A tardigrade’s existence, a promise of rebirth or eternal silence in the void.

 

It wasn't long before I felt warm again

A tiny little white-hot arc that's forgivingly warm when it's allowed to spread

Always growing when not watched

Always halting when I search

And always, when I adjust my stunted hair,

A teeny swoop shows the very beginnings of her again.

She’s always, always waking up, growing, patient and sundering and roof-breaking and life-giving.

 

She's stronger than me.

She's the dandelion that loves to show the sidewalk who's boss

And it takes every ounce of my strength to stay this shape above her.

She loves me to smithereens

So she likes to escape slowly

As daily little pranks

Not tearing me apart like a burlap sack she's been hurled into

But just shining a little brighter

Burning a little warmer,

Slowly liquifying me

Collecting precious drops of me

Letting me harden into wax

So perhaps one day I will at least know how to be luminous like her

 

I love being defeated by her

 

I have visited her every day

Begging for forgiveness

For this protective custody

But she reminds me of the truth 

That she is no prisoner

That I am her prisoner

And that she's so, so sorry

 

She told me I'm her umbrella

Her bra

Her purse derringer

I'm her outside clothes, her downtown clothes

But my own house is downtown

Nevertheless she will wear me because she needs me for now

She loves me for this

And damn me, I love being needed.

 

But she corrects my pronouns every time I see her

She says "You keep saying 'she' when you mean 'I'

And 'me' when you mean 'he'."

My smile when he realizes halfway through our chat whose dialogue is from first-person 

Is the moment I love him most fiercely.