Baby Teeth

I pulled the prayers from my raw gums like baby teeth. With the
          blood spat into my palm, there lay the tools with which I
          chewed up everything I ever put into my mouth. And yet even
          then I had felt the hands working my jaw for me.

Every day I tongue the empty space before meals and again at
          bedtime. There’s this moment when I feel like I should be
          saying something, but the void leaves my tongue aimless in the
          newfound space. I’ve grown accustomed to it.

I wasn’t so fond of it when they wiggled in my mouth when I talked
          or ate, acting like a broken saloon door for my roving tongue. I
          didn’t like to brag about it with my friends. It didn’t quite feel
          like a rite of passage as it did a loose Band-Aid.

They dangled on those last few roots that desperately clung on to that
          childlike innocence, which looked like Awana badges, Sunday
          school, father reading to me bedtime stories of David, the
          girlfriends in church that were always repentant after we
          touched;

I began to believe I could sew it back in if I only believed hard
          enough. It was in those last few efforts that I was at my lowest,
          when my gums started to become infected as bacteria got
          beneath the bone and festered in the flesh. I grew sorer and
          sorer.

At some point I ripped every last one of them out. The therapist had
          cancelled my last three appointments. The bible study couldn’t
          progress since it refused to answer my first three questions. I
          stopped believing an artist had to first and foremost be
          miserable.

I still keep them in a little plastic treasure chest in a cardboard box in
          the garage, along with my plastic baseball trophies and other
          sentiments unworthy of the bedroom shelves. I recycled all the
          extra bibles I previously felt guilty enough to never say no to.

Sometimes a meal looks so good I feel the need to thank someone for
          it. Sometimes I wake up so happy I need to give someone credit.
          Sometimes that’s not the case. I’m happy I don’t have the voices
          telling me through my own teeth how sinful I am.

I’m also happy they’re not telling you how sinful you are.

I tongue the space before meals and before I drift to sleep. I feel
          something growing there. My parents are looking into an
          operation that will put the teeth back in. I still fear one day I’ll
          be the one to grab the sewing kit.

I don’t fear cavities anymore. I think they took them all with them. I
          brush my teeth now and believe in modern medicine, and
          climate change. Needless to say, I didn’t put them under my
          pillow that night.

Sometimes, before bed,
I try on the outfit
I have laid out
for the next day
in front of the mirror.

It’s like
peeking through the
wrapping paper
before Christmas Day.

Sometimes
that outfit neatly tucked
in the corner of my room
by the closet
is the only thing
that will get me out of bed.

After already hitting snooze
for three hours,
first class skipped,
lunch date cancelled,
self-loathing amassing
at an alarming rate—

those neatly folded clothes
look like a savior atop a
carpeted Sea of Galilee.

To mistake it for vanity
is to be the one who
has never feared
once their feet left the bed
they would drown.

our president is
waging Thumb Wars

pressing the button
another pinball appears

he pulls back the spring
and hits send

watching the vociferous orb
encapsulated with incorrigibility
ricochet across the continents

the hemispheres
the stratospheres

across every neighborhood
and nation

bing bing boing

the barricades throb
and eyes light up
as the points
begin to rack up

1
2
3
4

he    got-ta    new-high    score

wow

such big thumbs
for such tiny hands

so he had my number because we met for tutoring on Wednesdays after class but he would text me really late at night asking me the weirdest stuff i would politely say this is incredibly inappropriate and i would not like to talk like this with you but still around two am he would text me lewd stuff again and again then asking if i would go on a date i said dude i am old enough to be your mother imagine if
a guy
          received texts
          like that
                    from a girl
                                  insisting to do ****** stuff BUT
he
would
have
liked
it.

He said “Cult of Simultaneity”
in such a sultry way
it made we want to kiss him
in that “Gay guys are attracted to me”
sort of way.

An English major taking an
upper level history course
as an elective—

When he smiled at you
in one-on-one conversation
his Irish emerald eyes gleamed between
slits (as he squinted his eyes
in a merry, amiable way).

He wore silk dress shirts and vests
every day with pressed tapered
black dress pants and
gleaming black oxfords.

His well-trimmed red beard
enwreathing the doorway to his mouth
made his lips (full, lush;
I swear they were glossed)—
evermore tantalizing.

I gave him a cute nickname
that was just his name shortened
but with a y, like Jimmy
and Bobby and
I hope he liked it—

He spoke with such finesse
carefully enunciating every syllable
running his tongue smoothly
across his teeth lips and
the roof of his mouth
free of spit and stutter—

every phoneme imbued
with his placid charm,
I ate every crumb
with my eyes glued to him
across the classroom—

Vain and straight,
straight in vain.

She is
the Ethereal Wonder
and I am her trusty sidekick
Dream Boy.

Her obsequious protégé,
I chop at the shadows
of the baddies
and glass ceilings
to which she delivers
swift kicks and merciless punches.

In the Dream Mobile,
my eyes are at her hand
on the stick shift,
her thumb flipping the
oil slick switch and pressing it—

the sounds of cars screeching and
careening off cliffs
fail to deter me from imagining
the gloved hand in mine.

Off she darts into the fray,
and I hear
the shocked public
gasp,
and the narrator expound,

“Faster than men less qualified but
more likely to get the job,

as powerful as histories
of suffragettes and debutantes,

able to leap over the confines
of impressed domesticity
in a single bound!”

Into her arms fall
the thankful victims
at the last second,

and the baleful embrace
of malevolence
gropes at thin air
where the Ethereal
Wonder once was.

She receives thanks
with a wave of a gloved
hand and bounties
of humility.

She is no damsel in distress,
she is no mere love interest,
and to be her partner
in this great dangerous adventure
will be the most heroic story
ever told—

And perhaps one day she will need saving,
and I will rise to the occasion—
owing my strength, wisdom, and ability
to all she has ever taught me
of being a hero.

Growing up I always had my head in a cloud
Especially when learning about love
I was told it was the greatest feeling ever and
me I love great feelings so naturally I would pursue

It was a very young age that I learned that this thing called "love"
doesn't always love you back
It will cloud your judgement, break down your walls and before you know it you are under attack, under siege if you will,
It's very goal to break your heart, break your will
It's very goal is to steal, to ****.

I used to think love was a wild fire
A force that couldn't be contained
but demanded to be fed
A force that isn't easy to be controlled, and hard to be read

I used to think that love was a fire
with a blaze that burned to cinder, hearts unready,
with a match like tinder

My heart now burned, scorched and fading to ashes
I look at my battered soul, whipped by love look at all the lashes
I know now that love isn't fair
No words, no apologies could ever clear the air
No poem, no letter could ever pay the fare
couldn't cover the price of what you did,
or the secrets from me you hid

I've always let you back in
You were my favorite drug
You were my happy place
Beyond the clouds, with time and space
So I always let you back in
You always taste so sweet
but in my stomach felt like sin
But I keep letting you back in
I keep letting you back in