A Dragon Named "Judgement"

There lies a paradox

in the embarrassment you felt,

hand-in-hand

with the assurance you needed

walking in with a parent’s push into rooms

filled to the brim with dragons,

the kind that could only be slain by a princess like your mother.

In the pride and shame you carefully balanced

conversing with your father in native tongues

a language going back centuries before your 5-year-old time.

Keeping tears held carefully on the waterline

as you try to convince him

“Come to school with me,

only for today”

Sì, Lenu, me lo hai detto ieri.

Yes, Elena, you said that yesterday.

Little boys’ eyes bore holes through you

unless you wore Mamma’s ratty pink sweater

every day,

you can't wash it,

lest her scent escape you.

But dragons fly off to their perch,

resting in the far back of your mind

only to come out carrying the only nail-gnawing you feel these days:

a slow shame flame burning in the mouth

of your dragon named “Judgement”

Judgement turned 16 too,

he went through phases where

he inflicted his powerful name onto diverse victims,

the most recent of which being

a teenage has-been in a ratty pink sweater,

and in that,

There lies a paradox.