ODE TO A DRAGON

May 2021

​

you're a cheap piece of plastic,

and I think I paid too much for you.

it must have been three dollars, for this —

I get poorly painted plastic joints

that were never designed to be anything

more than the temporary treasure 

of a child with sticky fingers,

but my teenage self —

staring at your three disjointed heads

through the warped packaging,

hanging on the wall of the dollar store —

saw you as something more.

you've always been a bit of a metaphor.

I used cheap acrylic paint from three aisles over,

painted your scales with just a bit of shadow,

because I saw you as something more —

a monster from another realm,

towering over a city square,

your limbs a mess of blackened sludge

and exposed bone.

as I brushed over your purple skin

I had to fight to keep you standing

on two uneven feet.

you’re a cheap piece of plastic,

and I treasure you. 

I love you so much that I buried you

in the pages of a story,

built a fantasy out of nothing 

but ink on a page

and a lump of plastic held in my hand —

and you were so much scarier

in my head. 

in later drafts, you lost the wings

and the tail and the snarling jaws

dripping greyish spit,

but that’s okay —

you’ve always been more of a metaphor.

so you’ll still hold your place on my shelf,

a symbol of where I started,

of where I’m going,

and of something more.