The Dismantler

Words I cull are threaded with bits of him
So savory and crude
Pieces of fat and muscle dripping off roast
And I told him the migraines are not aches
But dismantlers.

I didn’t tell him that he dismantles me
When I see him up close or at a distance
fragmented in sunlight and making a stir
Loosening these stacked and staggered
stones only to reveal…

Waiting.
There is a humorous kind of agony, right?
Before a giant life?
Well, it’s all theory.
One won’t stop picking the scab if one is unaware.

He leaks his sun through my clouds
He pours milk into my bitter coffee
But my teeth-gnashing exposes
the underbelly of all his truth-seeking
and I keep giving my secrets away to the deaf.

I’m breathing my love into bedding
breathing my thoughts into steam
That man is a slow-burning emergency
And a whipstitch to my unraveling
My favorite knife in the ribs

(but this joy is private.)

-Bria Servoss

You can read more of Bria's work on her website.