Seasons

table of contents

***

How many years had passed

since I graduated?

Golly, I hadn’t kept track.

A lot in The City.

A lot more in the Realm of Green Dragons.

But even before I left,

I was older than any human normally lived.

Even at fifty, before the dragon snatched us,

I rarely kept up with my family,

the neighbors from high school

or the grocer,

so after the dragon snatched us

I just figured

they’d all grow old and die

thinking I’d died first

without telling them.

Then I graduated witch school and moved away

and any cousins or nieces or nephews’

kids probably grew up too,

then had their own kids,

and maybe those ones had more,

so now that I’d returned…

would any of them even recognize my name

in their family tree?

Just a girl

without any kids,

a twig

from her parents

with no fruit

coming from her,

lost to history?

Not that I was here

to seek them out,

but the thought

remained:

how much had changed

without me,

without needing me around

to witness or shape it?

So I walked

a couple hours

for a couple days

until I arrived

at the sea

and felt like

I should’ve seen a city

looming

one direction or another

or a ship

or a plane

so I walked some more days

then shapeshifted to a bird

to explore,

leaving my cane

and cloak

hidden

in a cove

I hoped I’d remember

by its crooked stream

and yellow trees

since these belongings wouldn’t burn well

to let me resummon them in a fire,

then while flying over the coast

I figured

maybe I should visit the school sometime

to ask for another cloak

since my dragon black one had dust and mud deep between the scales

and my demon wing bag

had smoked up enough eyeballs

it could go to the education fund

where they’d maybe consider it quality to keep,

or I could

journey to a realm of fire and fang

to make my own

bag and cloak

but that sounded like a hassle,

I’d have to shapeshift my nose

so I wouldn’t choke on brimstone

and shapeshift my skin too

so it wouldn’t burn

but

mid mindwander

my osprey eyes

settled on the skeleton of a city

so I flew closer

and called it Brisbane

since it was big enough

but I didn’t actually know where I was,

it could’ve been

a city by any other name.

I didn’t go down

to the toppled skyscrapers

and cracked streets,

I continued north

and found nothing

but coastline

(forests, rocks, beaches, reefs)

clear ‘til nightfall,

then I slept in a tree

with my osprey brain

that knew more than a mouse would

but still lacked reasoning,

so the dream I had

made no sense

until,

wings wet with dew,

I flew down past Brisbane

and landed in the yellow cove

by the crooked stream

and shapeshifted back

to a tree.