Teeth.
What are these teeth?
Tantalizing
Teasing
Tormenting?
Pulled together
Not by accident
But pulled together
By taste
Sometimes pulled out by
The hope of tomorrow
They are treating me
These teeth
Staring at me
Their whites in the open
Are caressing my face
Their sharp canine
Cutting through my skin
They say my name means gentle
Oh! So gentle
That a tooth is enough to tear into my heart
And create its jaw in the vessel of my breath
Hers was a little yellow
Stained as if with the highlighter
She so often uses in her craft
His was more white
A reminder of the blankness he always felt
Being the last in the family
No more bullet points after his
The last comma
The last exclamation
Everyone’s teeth so beautifully centered around the table
The Crown of England
Stolen, but treasured
These smiles seem stolen by the treaty
The treaty we have made to stick by each other
A treaty not bound in any written code
But a treaty of the hearts
Made a million years ago
And still there in place
So we stick to it
A smile we give to it
Sometimes that smile
Just to abide by this code
But sometimes it’s more
It’s there for me
For once, I’ll believe they are there for me
Not by default but by intention
They are staring at me
Teeth pulled out
The whiteness, a submarine I’m riding in
Till it drowns
Those teeth ornamenting faces of the people I adore
Am I the food?
Is it for me?
I hope so
I want those teeth to myself
No
I don’t want 10 sets of teeth in this already tightened jaw
No
I don’t want another set of molars to crunch on that extra granola
No
Not another canine to quench the hunger for meat
The teeth I want
Aren’t physical in form
What I want is what’s behind
No
Not the bacteria stuck from the food they just ate
No
Not the retainers behind my dad’s face
What I want is what makes those teeth pull out
For once, not treaty
I remember it wasn’t war that one time
That one time, it was congregation
Communion
Community
Cohesion
Collage
A collage of the infinitesimal pieces that make us each individual
A unique collage of everyone’s canines
That come together to create a picture of collision
A collision of hearts
That make art
And I am drowned in that gallery
I am the centrepiece
Those teeth shining brightly at me
Admiring me for once
Lulling me for once
Looking at me for all my intricacy
For once
The cake I’m cutting, a symbol of how far I’ve come
Not in my journey as a human
But as an artist
And there they are
Teeth pulled out
Acknowledging my art
Better
Chewing on my art
And finally
Tasting it
How did it feel?