Letting Dragon Swamp

Letting Dragon Swamp


Old, familiar feeling
you protected me for so long
I’ve nurtured you carefully
Carefully like a loving mother
tenderly nurses her infant
who depends on her for everything

You grew and invaded
Overtook me like a weed infests the soil
You deceived me, saying I need you,
I need more, to feel good
To be happy
To survive
You’re never satisfied
You don’t give up

Turned into a monster
Demanding, selfish and mean
Showing up uninvited, unannounced
then suddenly retreating like a dream
Going back to your warm, throbbing,
pulsing putrid swamp

Subtle and sneaky, your strong tendrils crawl out far
But when unmasked I feel your marred figure,
you storm in powerfully
making your presence known,
and why?

Lest I forget you are there?
Afraid you’ve been neglected,
and are wasting away?

I’ve hated you
Wanted to annihilate you
Suffocate and drown you
Ignore the shadows of myself

But then whom could I blame
for not achieving perfection now?
Who else would have protected me
from maybe, possibly, someday
fully loving myself and therefore another?

Who else would have given me excuse
to avoid so successfully entering the unknown
and risk being hurt?

Carefully I nurtured you all of my life
but I see you now
You’ve been exposed.

Old familiar feeling,
you are not welcome here
I am pulling up your weeds
as quickly as they grow
I have been digging for years,
and I’m approaching your root

I won’t hate you forever
I know that I nurtured and enabled you
But it is without regret that I say goodbye,
for I know better now

I embrace my shadows without the shame
You are nothing but a fleeting whisper
that has no home and blows in the breeze
May the sun swallow your swamp
and leave you with satisfying beams

April Murdock
5.14.09