Unlike most people,
I sort of enjoy going to the dentist.

Poking and prodding in my mouth,
“What college did you attend?”
“How often do you floss?”

These are life’s eternal questions.
What scars did you create?
The first or last thing to rot is your teeth, no? Your choice.

If the woman didn’t have her fingers in my mouth I would tell her about your 22-year-old baby tooth.

How it caught every crumb and how we planned to pull it out with a doorknob.

And how I fell in love with your chrome colored bedroom, dripping with chains, like the braces etched into your knee.

And how the whites of your eyes get pearly in the sun, milky baby teeth.

I’ll stop drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes if it means we never decay.

Just promise to brush and floss and keep me safe, and maybe, I’ll stay.