It started with the word,
dragon,
and its synonym:
dad,
That man who started fires with the things that he said.
He didn’t breathe fire, he used words instead.
They were never for me because I was
Good.
Good, in definition.
In other words, I was
Quiet.
They were never for me because I was quiet.
And I was familiar with them -- the dragons.
I had a secret weapon, a word,
And the word was a
Shield,
And the shield’s name was
Indifference,
To the fire, the burning fire,
To the words.
From behind his teeth, below blood-shot eyes they came,
BIG words which rested on my head like a weight,
LOUD words that drowned out every other sound,
They were hot to the touch, BURNED like a brand,
Coloring my sight RED with the CURSES between syllables,
A SLEDGEHAMMER to the wall around my idealistic world.
I watched it crumble…
There was another word,
Sister:
Who only shared half of my blood.
The half-sister,
The one who never did say the right things.
A warrior
who never wore a shield, only purple,
Purple:
The color of royalty,
The color of HER
Of her BRUISES after battle,
From the WORDS and the FISTS and the BLOWS that he gave.
I wanted bruises too! I wanted to be    
BRAVE…
But my words were so quiet,
and I was scared of the dragon….
Black,
the color of a fortress,
a world in a word,
And a synonym:
my closet.
The silence was a friendly phantom,
Which stroked my scarlet hot cheeks,
lifting me into the delicate plumes of its dark embrace.
out of the world of an eight-year-old,
the coward.
Confused, scared, angry, I WAS A CHILD!
But I was a child with very grown-up thoughts.
Grown-up, a word,
And its synonym: serious.
White
was the color in my nightmares.
Filled with veils, bouquets, and pearly smiles
The haunting ivory of a wedding dress,
And its synonym:
a prison.
The couple would smile and say, “I love you.”
But that word,
Love,
Had a synonym:
Obligation,
And its color was green,
The color of the dragon’s face when it looked at other women.
And when long the years past, the coward child became serious,
I became serious, a word,
and its synonym, grown up.
I still carry my shield
For whenever I see
Dragons,
dragons, a word,
and its synonym:  

MEN.