Dragon Eggs

I have been swallowing dragon eggshells for ever since I could remember;
collecting their vacated hulls in the pockets of my dress,
immersing my hands in spumous water to gently purge them clean,
lining them up like a rock collection along the sills;
and with a jade stone, grinding them to dust,
snorting them up like a tonic of all the things I wasn’t;
agitating them into the mashed potatoes
and spoon-feeding it to the ulcer in my side
that screamed when it’s drug ran dry.
But today,
I do not find new ways to clean, break, and cook dragon eggshells,
I do not find new ways to swallow them;
today,
I cease trying to become the thing I am not,
and become the thing that I am;
I line up the dragon eggs like God lined the mountains along the horizon,
I command the dragons to life like a director commands a thousand voices to rise,
and they all call me by my name:
mother, mother, mother.


-anna sluder

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