Apologia, on Forked Tongue
by Lindsay King-Miller
they always try to catch me sleeping & that
is their second mistake.
dragons dream with our eyes open.
at night I wind my body around her tower
a nesting instinct, shelter
for eggs I’ll never tend. my warmth
sinks into stone. high above me
blood is moving, a pulse I can’t hear
and can’t escape.
sun rises hard.
another knight attacks at dawn, galloping
from the shadows to the west,
his spear ambitious to wake me.
but I am already sleepless
& cut deeper than a wound.
she keeps me skinny. what good
is a well-fed dragon? what is a moat
without being hollowed out?
I starve & throb. the smell of his heart
reaches me before the hoofbeats.
I did not always have these scales.
I was born a different monster,
my hard parts on the inside. for years
the only fire in my throat was her name.
I was a girl once,
warm-blooded once. a milk-fed child.
the first to offer her my rib cage
like a box with a gift inside.
I tried to fight the hunger
fold lips over my teeth
burn the sky with warning.
I tried to keep them safe
but they’re tireless, those glittering boys
& swordpoints do hurt
& so does swallowing flame
& so does loving a woman so heartless
she must devour what she lacks.
& the story always ends
with a twist–their necks in my teeth.
she descends when they stop breathing.
the tower has stairs, a door
locked from the inside.
she carries a golden key, a silver knife
to unlock the treasure of their chests.
she only takes what they came to offer.
I only eat what she leaves behind.
steel & marrow. a sword
lodged behind my tooth
years ago, & it’s still there, pulse of anguish
an abscess.
it hurts to eat their bones. these boys
salt-scoured with their own bravery
her name still warm on their lips–but how much
could they have loved her?
when all they had to do for her was die?
Lindsay King-Miller is the author of Ask a Queer Chick: A Guide to Sex, Love, and Life for Girls who Dig Girls (Plume, 2016) and The Z Word (Quirk, 2024). Her fiction has appeared in Fireside Fiction, Baffling Magazine, and numerous other publications. Her second novel This Is My Body is forthcoming from Quirk Books in 2025. She lives in Denver, CO with her partner and their two children.