I was your wisdom teeth

You were coming of age and I wanted so badly

To belong in the most intimate inside corners of your mouth

To curl up safe inside your cheeks as you turned into man

To sink my roots in your skull

To build my home in your gums

To be the words in the wet warmth between your lips

But I did not fit

And I was so stuck on being there

That you had to rip me out

With sterile and chemical and rubber-glove hand

The novacaine turned you numb

The removal of me grew you no wiser

And I am lying on the dried-blood bottom of an ice metal trash can because

You did not want me in you

You did not want anyone in you

No tiny

No foreign

No bones backpacking through the tunnels in your jaw

Carrying sensitivities over their shoulders that you did not know how to handle

Or how to love

Or how to let in

Without your mind shrill-spitting

That my kisses feel like stitches

While I pinky-swore

“I cannot replace the sugar your mama never put on your cereal

but I can find the nerve to call you baby

and it won’t rot your teeth when your tongue tastes it”

My promise was hard glue

Your teeth never rotted

But I am teeth

I am long licked over and spat out wisdom teeth

And I am rotted.