THE SADNESS
is just so hard to explain.
Imagine waking up
and someone, a stranger,
got you strapped down,
got pliers shoved
into your mouth, gripping a tooth
somewhere in the back,
one of the big important ones,
and rips it out.
Imagine the knocking
in your head,
the pressure pushing
through your ears, the blood pooling.
But the worst part, the absolute worst part,
is the constant slipping
of your tongue into the new empty space,
where you know
a tooth supposed to be
but ain’t no more.