by Wendy Shywalker

The dragons are real now, Pop.
You used to tell me not to be afraid,
that the dragons can't hurt me.
Well, I am afraid Pop and that hurts.
It is cold and lonely and its not the temple.
This is the place I am to call home.
At night they come again, these dragons of my dreams.
But they are real now.
They are dragons made of shadows, emanations of a father's love
long gone, who's tongue now spits the fire of loneliness.
I run through the dark, empty halls searching for a teacher,
a man, a hero, my father.
As I have every night since that night.
But you are gone.
I'm on my knees, my tears unstoppable.
Crying the tears of the unwanted and unloved,
no hope, no saviour, no one who cares.
This place is cold. This place is not my home.
Its walls call out, echoes from children lost long ago.
I see my future, as they too, saw theirs.
A future never free of the past, never free to live.
In the light of day, I found peace, to hide from my dragons,
But they no longer sleep.
They follow me, they laugh at my loneliness,
they haunt my every breath.
Suddenly a man appears, a man so different from the rest.
He has no herbs and flute to play.
But he has love that he carries like a shield, and a sword of strength, to
defeat my dragons
and guide me the rest of the way