The Dragon

Out of the Cave

There was a brown couch, a low light, and a night my skin said no. By the radiator stood a dragon, green and breathing steam, and he told the boy to vanish: be air, be fog, be not-there. So I did, for years. Now he rides in the beat, and every rhyme is one of his scales. What once taught you to disappear can teach you to come back louder.

Lyrics

🐉 The Dragon That Saved Me

Puff the magic dragon...
Lived by the heat...
Saved a boy from fire—
Disappeared discreet.

They never saw him.
But I did.
On the couch.
By the heating.
When hell opened—
He told me to vanish.

> Brown couch, low light,
Old TV with the static bite,
Two shadows moving, one too close—
That was the night my skin said no.

Uncle Nice with the Sunday smile,
Other one gripped me like a crocodile,
I froze like snow in a microwave,
And then—

I saw him.
Green. Glowing. Breathing steam.
Not a dream. Not pretend.
He stood by the radiator—my only friend.

Said:
“Hey Boy. Disappear. Be air. Be fog. Be not-there.”
And I did.
I folded like sheets.
Passed out in silence.
Woke up in screams.

> 🐉 Puff the magic dragon,
Lived where no one sees,
Saved a boy from monsters
With fire in his teeth.

He whispered in the heating pipes,
He wrapped me in his flame,
And every time I disappeared—
He stayed, and took the blame.

> Hospital lights like UFOs,
Woke up broken in second-hand clothes,
Cop uncle said,
“Say a word—your mom gets ghosted.”

So I toasted my fear in silence,
Became an agent of pure compliance,
A ghost kid with a fireproof soul,
And Puff? He patrolled the hole.

Said:
“Be the smoke. Be the trick.
Don’t speak. Be slick.”

And I did.
For years.
For school.
For home.

Until I learned to rap my poems
With a dragon’s tone.

> Disappear... survive... reappear... alive...
Disappear... survive... reappear... alive...

> Now I got flame in the pocket,
Bars like rockets,
Trauma like scripture,
Flow like a prophet.

Puff's not gone—he just rides in the beat,
Every syllable a scale, every rhyme his heat.

I made songs from silence,
Wrote truth like a threat,
My pen ain’t a pen—it’s a debt I never forget.

So I spit with a dragon tongue,
And fire in my chords,
I ain’t healing—
I’m warning every abuser with a sword.

> They said I was too young to remember.
But my body remembers.
My scars remember.
And Puff…
He remembers everything.

> 🐉 Puff the magic dragon,
Doesn’t live in dreams,
He lives in the breath of every kid
Who had to learn to scream.

He’s fire. He’s smoke. He’s silence kept.
He’s the dragon by the radiator
When you wept.

He’s the voice that said: disappear—
And come back louder.

> Thank you for saving me.
I never forgot.

The dragon lives on.

His name... is every kid who made it.

Words and music: Romian Nazlab · A Bonfire Production