Misty Ridge Musings

Dragon is not big, but he is potent. He lives curled up in my belly and has been there since I first opened my eyes. He was born with the moon, when it was ripped from the earth.

His scales are finely woven gold and silver, sunlight and moonlight intertwined; his claws obsidian, except when tipped with red. His eyes are deep, verdant green, the color of mid-summer, with flecks of the pure and pregnant green of spring. They will transfix you if you dare meet his gaze, as they hold all the paradoxes of life.

I often feel his hot flame in my belly or the lash of his tail on my heart. I was first aware of him when I was five, as I cowered by a hot water radiator, trying to become as small as possible, trying to disappear on the day my mother left. I felt his claws dig into my heart when I was 8, watching my first ballet and feeling every fiber in my being straining to dance, to lose myself in dance and loosen his grip from my heart. And I came to know him when I was ten and watched the moon following us as we drove through the dark, knowing that he was calling the moon to us.

He has nearly killed me when his breath was too hot or his grip too tight. And I have, at times, wanted to rip him from my belly when, having gazed into his eyes, I sank into life’s paradoxes and became lost.