{"id":58099,"date":"2026-02-16T01:06:50","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T06:06:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/?p=58099"},"modified":"2026-02-19T04:55:02","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T09:55:02","slug":"the-secret-to-being-a-dragon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/poetry\/the-secret-to-being-a-dragon\/","title":{"rendered":"The Secret to Being a Dragon"},"content":{"rendered":"<script>\nfunction showWarning_enUS() {\n    var content_warning_list = document.getElementById(\"content-warning-enUS\");\n\n    if (content_warning_list.style.display === \"none\") {\n        content_warning_list.style.display = \"block\";\n    } else {\n        content_warning_list.style.display = \"none\";\n    }\n}\n<\/script><div lang=\"en-US\" dir=\"ltr\" class=\"content-warning-container-ltr\"><p><strong class=\"content-warning-title\">Content warning:<\/strong><br\/><button onclick=\"showWarning_enUS()\">Show warnings<\/button><\/p><div class=\"content-warning\" id=\"content-warning-enUS\" style=\"display: none;\" ><p>This page contains: <\/p><ul><li>Body transformation<\/li><li> Death\/dying<\/li><li> Drug use<\/li><li> Vomit<\/li><\/ul><\/div><br\/><\/div>\n<p>Let me tell you something about the ocean<\/p>\n<p>that not many people know.<\/p>\n<p>About the first symbiosis between<\/p>\n<p>the first girl and the first saltwater body.<\/p>\n<p>In the beginning, the ocean was lonely<\/p>\n<p>and so she created a fifteen-year-old girl<\/p>\n<p>(or was it the other way around?)<\/p>\n<p>and she created a whole mess of other stuff too,<\/p>\n<p>which she now considers a juvenile<\/p>\n<p>and slightly embarrassing mistake,<\/p>\n<p>like podcasts and presidents and interest rates.<\/p>\n<p>But fifteen-year-old girls are all that matter.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s the only time it works.<\/p>\n<p>Think about it; at fifteen you\u2019re not actually a girl<\/p>\n<p>(much less a person, the audacity)<\/p>\n<p>you\u2019re a girl-shaped puncture wound,<\/p>\n<p>a girl-shaped ravine,<\/p>\n<p>a girl-shaped throatlump,<\/p>\n<p>a girl-shaped scream.<\/p>\n<p>And the ocean is the only thing big enough<\/p>\n<p>to fill all that negative space of fifteen<\/p>\n<p>with saltwater and corals and plankton<\/p>\n<p>and shipwrecks down in the saltdark deep.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In the ocean you can be angry<\/p>\n<p>or you can be alive, but never both.<\/p>\n<p>The ocean has no use for anger.<\/p>\n<p>If you stay angry you\u2019ll fill up your lungs<\/p>\n<p>with seaweed, grow barnacles<\/p>\n<p>in the hollows of your cheeks.<\/p>\n<p>You can live comfortably as shaking fists<\/p>\n<p>and trembling teeth for three to seven business days<\/p>\n<p>(which is the amount of time it\u2019ll take you to die)<\/p>\n<p>or sometimes you even last a year and a day<\/p>\n<p>depending on which kind of story it is<\/p>\n<p>and whether or not the fae are involved.<\/p>\n<p>But staying angry is your choice<\/p>\n<p>and the ocean does more than most<\/p>\n<p>letting you keep your anger and nurse it<\/p>\n<p>all the way to a saltsoft sandy grave.<\/p>\n<p>But being angry in the ocean<\/p>\n<p>doesn\u2019t do you or her much good,<\/p>\n<p>except that some lucky yellowtail<\/p>\n<p>or a sharp-eyed squid gets a mediocre meal<\/p>\n<p>once you\u2019ve curled up into a seductive<\/p>\n<p>devour-me pose on the seabed floor.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>But maybe you fall into the ocean and forget<\/p>\n<p>how to be angry, or maybe you remember<\/p>\n<p>but you look around at the deepsea dogfish<\/p>\n<p>chasing ephemeral tails and the gulperfish<\/p>\n<p>with maws like sunken sails and you think<\/p>\n<p><em>well what\u2019s the fucking point of anger anyway<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p>When that happens, when a girl and an ocean<\/p>\n<p>and loneliness and anger (or lack thereof)<\/p>\n<p>all line up perfectly like shots on a bar,<\/p>\n<p>or rocks orbiting a dying star,<\/p>\n<p>well then that\u2019s how the ocean falls in love<\/p>\n<p>and that\u2019s how you turn into me.<\/p>\n<p>You get a tail the size of the Atlantic, sticky<\/p>\n<p>bubblegum-blue scales, hurricane-Katrina wings,<\/p>\n<p>gutsharp teeth. And you get to vomit<\/p>\n<p>up that lump that\u2019s been stuck in your throat<\/p>\n<p>since forever, since fifteen, because no one down here<\/p>\n<p>gives a shit about your screams.<\/p>\n<p>And if you have to ask what I am<\/p>\n<p>then you haven\u2019t been listening<\/p>\n<p>and this is probably too primal for you anyway,<\/p>\n<p>too Grendel too Smaug too Hydra too Quetzalcoatl,<\/p>\n<p>and we both know that phallic sword<\/p>\n<p>in your hand doesn\u2019t make you St. George.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>So here\u2019s how the end of this story will go.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s late and I\u2019ve got another appointment<\/p>\n<p>on another current with another wannabe<\/p>\n<p>knight who thinks I need slaying<\/p>\n<p>or penetrating or debating or whatever<\/p>\n<p>it is your monkey hormones believe<\/p>\n<p>will finally make you feel like a man.<\/p>\n<p>Like you\u2019ve got anything I want<\/p>\n<p>or anything I need or anything<\/p>\n<p>that could impress eternity.<\/p>\n<p>I have a seasalt lover waiting at home<\/p>\n<p>with whale bone dinner and oceanic trench<\/p>\n<p>thighs and a hydrostatic pressure kiss<\/p>\n<p>that would liquify your primate mind.<\/p>\n<p>Did you know the ocean has a name<\/p>\n<p>that\u2019s older than the sound of time?<\/p>\n<p>She\u2019s a lot more forgiving than me<\/p>\n<p>and she\u2019ll whisper it to you<\/p>\n<p>if you go down enough into her deep.<\/p>\n<p>So come here, come closer, don\u2019t worry<\/p>\n<p>about the next lines.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s not water in your lungs,<\/p>\n<p>that\u2019s not tearing in your spine.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s just the taste of victory.<\/p>\n<p>There are ghosts down here to flatter you<\/p>\n<p>into believing you\u2019re something interesting,<\/p>\n<p>and isn\u2019t that all you ever wanted in life?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><i>[Editor\u2019s Note: Publication of this poem was made possible by a donation from Kat Jones during our annual Kickstarter.]<\/i><\/p>\n<br class=\"clear_both\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the beginning, the ocean was lonely \/ and so she created a fifteen-year-old girl \/ (or was it the other way around?)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[719],"class_list":["post-58099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-content-warning"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p82q22-f75","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58099"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58606,"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58099\/revisions\/58606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}