Last night, all the teeth fell out of my head.
You said it was a common dream,
but I wore away my gums with the bristles all the same,
and swallowed the mouthwash just to make sure
my insides were clean enough.

But then again,
perhaps my organs are not the correct organs
and the mouthwash is now dissolving the walls of
my simulacrum stomach.
Plasma will drip from my gaping, toothless maw,
the color of pea soup.

Grandma hated pea soup.
She said it was too opaque to see
the glass shards at the bottom of your spoon.
They would slice up your tongue
and you wouldn’t be able to call 911.

My tongue feels too big, overflowing onto my molars.
I chew, scraping off the taste buds,
whittling down the swollen muscle,
so I don’t swallow it in the witching hour:
your sleeping ears deaf to my wet choking.

I am eating saltines without soup when you come home,
in the puddle of mouthwash and blood my stomach spit back.
Your mouth runs over with “****,” your own teeth like rows of tic tacs.
I worry they’ll fall out soon, white and small against the linoleum.