biting down

i feel my teeth with my tongue
& wonder how many cavities i have waiting.
when i was younger i imagined them as
little burned holes as if my teeth were
made of paper & someone had taken a match to them.
now i think of them more like craters--
like a meteor shower visited my mouth 
while i wasn't paying attention. 
i haven't been to a dentist
in years so every time i pass a dentist place
i walk a little quicker. i don't
want anyone else searching in my mouth
but me. sometimes in the mirror
i inspect those creases between teeth.
sometimes i fish between them & pull out
stockings & necklaces & telephone wires 
lodged there. the gap between my front teeth 
is tight but, like the alley way to our apartment,
i think i could linger there. back against
the wall of a tooth. i could wait there
for something to pass & by something 
i mean myself. i mean sometimes i happen
in waves--a sense of crashing 
in every single bone. the tongue made
of sand & the rest is the deep. 
there are fish that function as organs.
i am often a sad person making myself
feel more sad 
in the name of something. love maybe?
no, nostalgia. 
i don't know yet 
why i'm like this because
i don't want to know. i walk on teeth tops. 
stepping stones. slightly slippery. 
my mouth: a pink garden. i lean 
closer to the mirror as if it will
let me inside-- as if i could press
my teeth to the glass & understand their
crookedness. their twisting. their glossy
bodies. how each is threaded into my skull
with a matrix nerves. light fixtures,
glowing faintly. in need of changed bulbs.
there was one boy i dated whose teeth 
would always clack mine as we kissed.
when it happened we would hold
our mouths a moment, 
feeling that dull pain & then 
we'd go back to kissing 
like nothing had happened at all. 
the cold makes them shutter.
i would watch my uncle bite 
butter pecan ice cream-- his teeth
raking the frozen surface while i ate
mint chocolate chip slowly & carefully
so my teeth didn't touch the surface.
there's a series of bites
that make up how i loved this guy.
a bite i left on his neck & one
on his shoulder. i bite the back 
of my hand to feel the teeth to feel
the ocean to feel the deep beneath it
& all those fish throbbing in the water
& i bit that boy because he asked me to 
because he wanted a mark-- something 
almost permanent. maybe he really just
wanted to ask for my teeth & settled
for the next best thing. half moon. 
row of pockmarks. crescent 
on the back of my hand.