dragon

when i was little~~maybe.. 7-8 years old~~we visited my aunt and uncle and cousin often. my cousin amy was a teenager, and she was always out with her friends. she had posters of duran duran and the like on her walls, and her bedroom was all periwinkle and seafoam green striped. periwinkle was my favorite color, so i loved being in her room. she was a teenager(!), and this fascinated me~~that she stayed out late with her friends, listened to strange radio music, and dressed . .. like a teenager: it was the sweaters that come off your shoulder, stretch pants, leg warmers, and those thick many-stranded bead necklaces. she wore makeup. her eyelashes were very long and electric blue.

when we spent the night, i slept on a mattress on her bedroom floor. right next to her closet, with its clothes explosion, and right underneath an art poster from a chinese new year celebration. it was a picture of a dragon, with jeweled red eyes. as i lay in bed falling asleep, i felt as if the dragon were looking down at me with those firey red eyes. taunting and provoking and judging me. it made me uncomfortable. but i was a kid, and that was where my bed was. i didn't cover the dragon, or move the bed, i just lay there~~scared. one night, after i had gone to sleep despite the dragon, he visited my dreams. he was wild and animated and fierce. he wrought havoc on my dreamworld. it was terrible. i woke up, stunned. i took my periwinkle blanket, padded downstairs in my sockfeet, and slept on the couch.

i have always been afraid of dragons. recently, after averting my eyes from dragon images all these years, i looked at one. and i liked it. i liked the electric fireyness of it, and i liked its nature to stir things up!~~the random chaos. and that its body is just a little bit longer than i'd like for it to be. . .