He broke my spine down the middle,
folded me between vertebrae
like a grocery list
and carried me to the mountaintop
where the ground is too hard to dig.
He placed me face-down
on a stone where I was no more blind
than I had been all along
to the ways he inflicted injury
and called it love.
Like any good body-breaker,
he remembered to laugh.
To not take too seriously the business
of dismantling me limb by limb
as the vultures wings beat overhead.
I waited in pieces
for them to feast on my flesh
like a holy wafer–
the body and the blood.
I waited to feel their talons,
the violent wanting of me
I had come to know so well.
When the flesh is gone,
let them have the bones, too,
right down to the marrow.
I want them to have it all,
to leave no trace of me.
Let my soul find a home
he won’t recognize.
Photo by Casey Allen on Unsplash
