The ashen dragon drifts above the golden city 
and I follow 
with my composite wings of steel and brass, 
built without gloves—unoffered— 
to shield my wrists from the blood  
my mechanisms conjured in bites and rips. 

This blood I now refuse to quell 
rains upon the regime 
that withheld resources, hypnotized the masses 
to accept flight was impossible. 
The rulers bent and twisted and fashioned 
my formative years into a perfect cog 
perpetuating The Machine’s existence. 

But crafty, I found 
the loose gears no anarchist dared fix, 
and I slipped out, rolled down 
to a clandestine cave unscathed. 
Now the gold is just a flicker far below, 
roads running wet with red 
and rusting in the dust of my laughter 
as I fly beyond the smog to the zenith of Aquarius. 

Bronze winner of this contest: https://allpoetry.com/contest/2831054-National-Poetry-Month-April-16th-noguest