Conception into Form
Gestation takes its own time
The waiting becomes unbearable
Yet it must be borne
Each creature with its own course
In the beginning, only a suggestion
Of new life arising
Hunger, nausea, preparatory anticipation
Chemicals coursing from brain to body and back again
I have a nightmare
That a beast grows inside me
Wraps itself around itself, over and over and over
Until its spikes and scales push aside my organs
While it claws its way out of my gut
And uses my skin to hook and drag its weight
Around my waist and up my spine
Each vertebrae a bony rung for its rising
Until it whispers its name on the back of my neck
Searing spittle punctuating each syllable
Ash and sulfur swirling in my ears and up my nostrils
Seeping into my skull, clouding and crowding out
Suddenly it spreads its still slick wings and shoves
Using my body as a fleshy springboard
Carelessly taking with it ragged pieces of me under its talons
I wake and shake
Away the acrid stench and molten fog
Unsure of what is being formed inside me
I sit up and breathe and find
I am satisfied to be creating anything at all
Whatever it becomes
I gladly let it rip and scar
Leave me different from before
I will let it take my DNA with it when it goes
Until then I gestate, and wait
–by me
Celestial Birthing by Tania Marie
Inspired by my daughter, her dragons, and the following quote,
“Sometimes the ideas that mean the most to you will feel true long before you can quite formulate them.” —Pinsky
sometimesihatemycat 