words tangled in my ear like vines
and cackled laughter, hands balled
up in fists, a cacophony of everything
i'd ever been terrified of. my
mother never pondered where
the violet-blue patches of skin had
appeared nor where i'd lost
my tooth the last day of second
grade, discovered three days
later by a janitor in a pool
of blood from a fight
broken out on the little
girl with no one else.

the tooth fairy gave me a dollar
for the gap between my teeth
but the tooth itself had cost me
so
   much
         more