Inner experience

[Poeticbraces]

I always keep my mouth open
Often I talk
Sometimes I don't.
I always keep my mouth open.
It is too hard to close it:
My teeth would not allow me.
They have a life of their own.
Do they really belong to my face?
Are they planted in my bones?
Some days, I doubt it...
And then, my teeth start hurting
And through the pain
I know they belong to me

[Poeticbraces]

Here I am
For the first time
In the othodontist's chair.
I am closing my eyes
and I can feel the rubber fingers
of the woman who looks at my teeth
and touches them
and digs inside my lips
to find out more.
She is looking for a gap
where she can put back my front teeth
but there is no space anywhere:
all my life
my back teeth have told my front teeth
to go to another mouth
or become
as painful as a twisted arm.

I have never seen my mouth
except in a mirror
and it is better that way:
less depressing!
You get used to your own cosy ugliness.
All you need is to ignore it
Or pretend
on the outside
that you ignore it.
Inside,
Inside,
I have always known.
Never said it.
Always known.

Today my own
single mouth
is under the headlights
and the woman with rubber gloves
and white tee-shirt says
that she is not sure yet
of what she can do
but she knows already
that she can do better
than nature.

I am sitting there
feeling bad
about my teeth
that look bad.

[Poeticbraces]

My mouth got fingerprinted
photographed, x-rayed
moulded, sculpted for posterity
while I would so much like
to forget forever what it looks like.

I suppose this is the last stage
before getting my teeth handcuffed.

My teeth are an incomfortable garment
that I have to wear inside
my mouth and my body.

My teeth cannot bite.
Everytime
they miss their target!
Everytime!
My teeth cannot get clean:
food hides in the dark corners
of my mouth.

X-rayed
I can see my skull:
vision of what I will be like
in death!
My teeth are sticking out
like a funny artificial ornament.

I daydream of vomitting these teeth.

[Poeticbraces]

A wire is strangling me
inside the mouth.
My teeth are shackled.
My lips are numb
eating words and spitting food.
I am surprised I can still talk.

I have a strange feeling of elation
at knocking my teeth into shape
punishing them
hurting them even
for all that they have done to me.

They will fold into submission
one day.
For the time being
they are fighting back
and trying to hurt me.

It is not as bad as I thought.
It is like being punched in the face
It could be worse.

I cannot laugh
I cannot laugh at them
I cannot laugh without them.
Now, they have gone into hiding
behind their portable wire fence.

[Poeticbraces]

[Meloho]

Wow! Not only are you an eloquent and fascinating writer, you are presenting your story in such a unique and ingenious way...very attention-grabbing, but more importantly, attention-keeping. I look forward to reading more.

[Laurie]

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
That's pretty spiffy,
Writing your journal like you do.

[cwatt1]

Nice work, Poetic! Your writing took a great deal of thought and creativity.

Best of luck in your braces journey. Pic looks great

[Lisa65]

Very evocative, Poetic.

I look forward to later stanzas of your braces poem.

[Poeticbraces]

Love can be killed
by indifference and nothing else.
As the skin never forgets
the sun you burn it with,
love never forgets
these meaningless moments
that should have been
meaningful
in her life
in my life
in life.
Love is killed by boredom
and nothing else.

A kiss is always
a first kiss
otherwise, it is a wet handshake:
a mouthshake.

A kiss
is a metaphor.
It pretends to get bodies fused together.
It mimicks lovemaking
like hunters dancing in an African village
mimick the hunt
and the failed escape of the animals.

First kiss of the day, soon.
Just as important as the first kiss ever
of our love.
Yet, today, for the first time
I must kiss over the fence
that is stuck in my mouth.

A kiss is a metaphor
and if there is any imaginary fence
between the woman I love and me
if there is a wedge
between our lives
the kiss will say so.

I will approach my lips near hers
trembling the fear of truth
because the first kiss with braces
will tell me more
than any fortune teller ever could
even one
who wouldn't be a fake.

[Poeticbraces]

We disappeared
eyes closed.

We drowned, kissing.

Earth left us alone for a while.
The fire and water of the kiss
were more intense than the burning anguish
of the first kiss
ever.

Kissing is like drinking wine
the smell invades you
as your lips approach
and then
the cold
and then
the warm
liquid is tickling the tongue
and awakening the memory of the mouth.

A kiss has a smell
and a taste.
A smell of excited breath
and Chanel Number 5.
A taste of red fruit.

Kiss. Wet caressing feeling.

Kiss. Forever the first.
Lost and remembered.
Ephemeral and eternal.
A simple movement of the lips
that shivers through two bodies
at a time.

There was no fence in my mouth
this time.

[Poeticbraces]

All gathered.
All sitting outside
in the dark.
A crowd.
An audience.
A light-flooded stage
and a pianist dressed in black
and a piano shining black.
My teeth look like a keyboard:
thick white blocks
and narrow black gaps in between.
I want to listen
yet I feel a tooth wabbling.
My tongue caresses the chain gang inside my mouth.
It is all right.
The tooth is loose
but does not move astray.
I can concentrate on the music
again.
A black suit.
Animated white hands.
A black piano.
Agitated white keys.
And a sound
so beautiful that
it melts in my ear.

[Poeticbraces]

The wise woman in white
who reads in the future
of my teeth,
the wise woman in white
is sowing my teeth
one after the other
with a metal thread
as thick as an electrical wire.
My teeth are dangling
inside my mouth
wobbling until the thread
keeps them together.
The wise woman in white
is approaching my teeth with pliers
that look like metal fingers.
Open with elastics across
the pliers look like legs
undressing.
The pliers close and the elastics hide
inside my teeth.
The elastics
the white invisible elastics
start strangling my mouth
again.