How the Serpent Got Her Scales

~ by ~
Carla Gagen

She was born small.
Not in spirit, but in shape.
A quiet thing
coiled in shadow
Spoken of in hush and wonder,
A serpent with no name.

They never feared her then.
Too delicate, too soft,
A sliver of silver moving through the world
Like a whisper,
Like something easy to ignore.
But she was watching. Always observing
all the energy around her

She learned from their lies,
From the shifting of their eyes,
From the way their hands twisted kindness
Into something sharp.
She saw the trapdoors in their words,
The poison behind their smiles.

They thought she was blind.
But her eyes, oh her eyes
Were always open.

She swallowed their fire
Until it burned in her lungs.
Took their stones
Until they transformed her skin
They thought they were burying her
But she was becoming.

Scales came first,
Born from every scar
She refused to let define her.
Layered like armor,
Glistening like the truth
She would never again swallow.

Then came the wings.
Wide, wicked things
Not made for beauty,
Not made for show,
But built to carry her far.

And the fire?
Oh, the fire
That came last.
Not gifted, not given,
But earned
In the flames of everyone she knew.

They called her an enigma.
Watched her glow and called it mystery.
Sure, there were ladies more beautiful.
Sure, there were bodies more divine.
But beauty was a whisper,
And she had been forged by time.

Her light was blinding
To those who could not see.
To those who kept her a fantasy,
An idea, a ghost, a maybe.

But what they never understood
What they never saw
Was that she was fully aware.
She knew what she was.
She knew what she carried inside her ribs.
She did not mistake her fangs for feathers,
Did not call her hunger a lie.

She was not just light.
She was not just scales.
She was beast,
And she was whole.
only a dragon
Could love the moon
The way she did.