The Dragon Inside My Furnace Heart

Since childhood,maybe even farther back
I knew there was something wrong inside
Some sort of voice
Hollow
Cold,yet burning...
I would close my eyes & see a vision of a dragon
Black scales
Ashy grey smoke that poured out from his mouth when he spoke to me.
"You are nothing,and everything" he would say to me.
"You are vile,yet loved"
"You are feared,yet you yourself are fearful"
"you reflect the nothingness inside your furnace heart".

For so long I have tried to reason with the dragon.
Other times,simply ignore him.
He is relentless.
Always pursuing me in all I say & do.
I would cry out to the Lord
and I could hear him laughing at me.
"He doesn't care about you...but I do"
the dragon said.

Someone to care for me
Hold me
Protect me from...
myself?

The days numbered into the thousands
and over 42 years had since passed
but the dragon seemed only to grow in strength.
His voice more now that a faint echo.
It was as though he'd had an open forum into the very chamber of my heart.
A place of honour.
A seat at the head table.

He continued to taunt me.
Mock me.
Shame me.
How could I ever be free of him?

One night as I closed my eyes I heard a different voice.
Not one of a man or a woman,nor of any sort of creature I'd ever heard utter.
The voice said to me
"You must walk through the fire inside your furnace heart,and then once you have walked through it
climb to the highest mountain inside of yourself where there is peace...wait for the dragon,for surely he will come,and when he does,take hold of him & break his jaw,cast him down & crush him beneath your heel."

So I did as the voice asked of me.
I walked through the fire of my furnace heart.
I climbed the highest mountain inside of me.
I waited.
and as told...
the dragon came.
More ominous than ever.
I could feel my chest collapsing in fear,my lungs gasped for air...
then suddenly our eyes met.
In that moment,I saw him for what he was.
A coward.
Nothing more than a frail ghost of a lie.

I took hold of him & with both hands I opened his mouth,pulling his jaws apart as far as they would go
until I heard a sickening snap.
I felt him go limp in my hands.
I didn't even look down...
I just let him fall to the ground beneath me
and I crushed him with my heel.
At that moment I nearly blacked out.
I could barely stand I felt so weak.
and the dragon had turned to dust beneath my feet.
I could feel a slight pain in my leg that shot upward & then dissipated into my stomach.

Something inside me felt completely broken...freedom?
I was no longer frightened.
I no longer heard his voice.
It seemed as though now I had some complete clarity that I'd never known before.
...and then I realized
for a split second,I felt dread...
then nothingness.
...and I realized this one final truth.
This dragon that had made my life a living hell for all my days wasn't some supernatural monster bent on my destruction.
No.
Not at all.
I...I was the dragon all along.

Then the voice I had heard next was the same voice that had instructed me to walk through the fire of my furnace heart.
"Now do you understand?"
"You are your own worst enemy...you are the self-destruction that only I can save you from."

I fell to my knees & cried.
I wept so loudly that it hurt my ears & made my head want to disengage from my body.
"Forgive me",I said.
"I am hopeless without you..I am vile..nothing..heal me,I beg you."

and in that moment I felt warm. Not like the fire that was once consuming me with pain or sadness or hatred.
Just peace.
I felt lighter than air.
I could finally breathe.
I felt myself lifting off the ground into the sun...I could barely move.
I managed to slightly look down & see what looked like myself...
curled up in a fetal position,entangled with the charred remains of a dragon...
and I knew once and for all
that the dragon inside my furnace heart had finally been laid to rest.