It begins as a tingling in my legs,
unpleasant like something squirmy trying to get out, something huger than my skin, wriggling, bursting to get free.

Without ceremony it spreads, bulging in my chest, prickles poking through my shoulder blades. Suppressing only makes it worse, I need to run, to fly, to breathe-

"What's wrong?" you ask.

I cannot answer, it is taking all my
willpower not to scream, or punch an
innocent bystander. Would I? Whether I would or not I've never found out,

I just leave.

"I love you," you say. I still cannot reply, the tears have been melting my face, but now they trickle down shiny scales.

External sensations have become
insensible, overpowered by the
overwhelming rage of barely managed fire within. The sharpness of my teeth meets an unfeeling leathery lip.

I go downstairs and leave the building. I don’t know if I remembered my keys.

I run
just as reptilian wings free themselves from my back, they flutter, stretch out wide at last.

I'm free,

but I still want this thing inside me, this thing that now is me, to leave. I am ashamed of it, afraid of its newness and my inability to control it.

It's happier now--
in the open air where it can thrash about without restraint. I let it, no longer worried it will lash out at something or someone breakable.

We fly far and long, my arms and lungs ache, but still the fire burns in my whole body waiting to be unleashed.

We soar, sore and angry until suddenly I'm alone again.

I look down but I don't need to look to know the scales are gone. My lip feels soft again beneath my rounded teeth. The wings still flap but gentler now, quietly bringing me back to the ground then softly folding and
painlessly absorbing back into my
shoulders.

I head home.