gold tooth girl
By: Stoly Manning
my bones are small and cold and usually
I carry them everywhere, so when they told us to stay in our rooms
I was glad.
I set them down for a bit on my pillow
he carried portraits of women on his thighs
like some kind of testament
their eyes always looking up
a mockery of reverence
or a reference to misogyny,
that slippery black bitterness that bubbled up under his skin
he snuffed out, like a candle does when I breathe on it.
my room grew into something very large and empty-empty
I kept waiting to go insane, to pace and pace and pace and
tug out my hair and weave the strands into evening wear
to feel deflated, limp and wet,
defeated or etherized
instead, in this space he left, I had time
finally
I decided
I no longer will be an accessory girl
like the tattooed ladies on your legs
faces frozen into expectant soft smiles
no longer will fill that droopy void in your style where
you prove you’re real, overwhelmingly cool
no more cardboard-cutout girl
or prop-me-up-in-the-background-when-you-get-bored girl
I’m a count-me-out-girl now
no more aid-and-abet girl, can’t vouch
for your personality, your status as a connoisseur of
deep-deep things and
acclaimed academic things and
all the you’re-expected-to-like-this-when-your-taste-is-good things
I’m gold tooth girl now
your mother never taught you to wash dinnerware
you told me that to sanitize a glass, I should pour vodka into it
I had a premonition and it punched me in the mouth
never could have thought
blood would taste like a silver spoon
where you touched my skin, I scrubbed it till it oozed red
I gargled vodka, and it burned away whatever residue you left
it was apathy that was running down the inside of your leg last night
it was apathy that I washed off my body in the shower this morning
I took out my bones and I set them on my pillow and I took inventory
I took the keyhole voyeur out of my head and into the street and I
pummeled him into the sidewalk until his face felt pulpy in my palms
my room extends to the horizon and I take up all the space now
and all of my bones are burning hot now
all of my bones are accounted for
except:
my teeth, which are all gold now,
I had them replaced
I thought you were sweet,
you were a prelude to a cavity
I took inventory then preemptive measures
you are envious because the gaps in your mouth are filled with ersatz intellectualism and
since you left
everything in my mouth is genuine