The Demlin – Kaia Winters

November 7, 2025

It’s num-num-num inside me wanting
to burrow through your drawers greedy

sucking Its fingers off with hot sauce
crawling in capillaries wrapping

It wiggle-wriggles in my knees
around the mettlesome atoms in my blood

sinking in like wool-water
grumbling for more

each night It seeds behind my eye
nagging-nagging the itch

I scratch my scalp so vigorously I tear
only knowing by the bloody marks on my book

and the trickle down my neck
Snotty is the nickname I gave It

to rebel but It crushes my breath in response
a ten-ton anvil – squeeze, inflate, squash, inflate

still I won’t let It rummage through your things

in response It scritches-scratches on my spine
gnawing in It’s gummy way

I shake unflinching at myself
in the mirror crushing tulip stem into my wrist

to cleanse the sharp smell of green
waking me up to my wavering form

with It curled in my abdomen
humming hands over ears

I’m back in a garden patch with fresh-stomp
tomato guts on my soles

then again with burs piercing
me the brief moment It took over

I like to say It borrows instead of steals
with the intent to get free but

we are both trapped in keratin
siphoning through the same straw

and The Demlin is overtaking me