Emma Rebholz
My Dentist Once Told me my Spit was Abnormally Acidic
Little girl,
sometimes you will feel closer
to komodo dragons than people,
but you should be wary
of biting your own tongue.
You can’t understand
the kind of damage you could do
with those teeth rotting
so beautifully in your mouth.
Little girl,
all those dreams you’ve been having
are more real than you’d think.
One day you will hold
a white incisor in your hand
and the blood will be
someone else’s.
You will almost be proud of that.
By now you should know there’s
a price to pay for every drop of venom.
No one looks out for the snake in the grass.
No one looks out for the girl turned gruesome.
Little girl,
think of your mouth as the prettiest mask
for the skin of your teeth.
Little girl,
the sweetness of antifreeze.
My favorite souvenir is an ambiguous stuffed animal saved from a Fuddruckers' claw machine somewhere on the east coast. After her rescue, she was cleverly dubbed "Kitty-Bear."