432. Poem "Subversivity of Dental Self Destruction"

Subversivity of Dental Self Destruction

"Everyone
has
their
own
vice.
If you hide it,
then there is something wrong,
and the vice
may be
very
very
bad,
even more so
than those revealed
to the openness
of their ripped sleeves."

I show my vice
on my teeth.
Decaying my whites
with Werthers
upon Werthers
denied with
sugar-free xylitol
tic-tac mints--
it's not that bad
relative to smoking
or alcoholism
or wrist slitting
or designing malicious bugs
for other computers
to self-destruct.
Or suicide cult planning
or bombing other countries
or just being an overall
pest to humanity
for my own vilenesss
of consumption
of valuable resources
and production
and nonutile wastes--
depending on the scale
of my operations.

Carameled sugar is an addiction
to feed a rapidly firing mind
for potentially up to 12 hours straight
of writing and thinking
and clinging to a computer
because she seeks what is written
on the computer
to one day reflect what is in her mind.
Mind mirrors
Computer's electrons
Mirrors mind.

And she is overwhelmed
always
by the influx of such splendid ideas
and notions of her surroundings
to a point of cumulative doom--
for she cannot keep up
and the sugar fix rises even more.
And all for what?
To become a better writer and artist?
I am destroying myself
to become better?

Day in, day out,
despite occasional brushing
and flossing and poking
and mouthwashing,
the bacterial colonies
move in, invade, occupy
establish incumbency,
and carve their crevices--
oh dear to think
I'm fostering an ecosystem
of malaise
in my major oral opening.
Good for the bacteria,
they are having a party,
I am sure,
yet not so hot for me.

But I dread and tread
myself, heavily into the
sterile multimilliondollar offices
of the dentist.
I hate him? Even her!
Why?
Because it costs so much?
Because some of them go to the realm
of aesthetics--beyond functionality?
Because they create dental problems--
hence my financial problems--
that don't seem to exist?
Because some of them are incompetent?
Because they have control over something
I cannot control and manage myself?
I cannot operate myself for fillings
and crowns
and bridges
and one day
implants?

Because I have
absolutely no control?
Oh yes, I'm slipping....
I am assuming I have no control.

I wonder where these dentists come from.
Why they even exist?
A few million years, billion years
without their functional
and aesthetic
and even technological existence.
Humans used to live till age 30.
Now it's 70.
But humans never ate sugar,
till the mass produced
canning and preservations of foods.
The dawn of sugar
was the dawn of dentists.

The dawn of strange biology people--
bioboneengineers
or dental jewerlyists--
who make a fantasmic monetary living
looking at, taking X-rays of,
poking at, sticking needles into,
chiseling away at, filling materials in to,
leaving something
slightly unfinished
so that their helpless
dazed and confused
customer limp in a fancy electric seat
can return for more pricy labors
of functionality to aesthetics
for the most beautiful
of perfect smiles of bleached coral white teeth
of small handful of overhyped movie stars,
with mine full of holes, stained yellow and brown
and I shall never hold a grin so parfait
as those pixelated figures on the screen--

So I smile with my eyes,
and somehow some people seem to like it.
I hide the sin of my mouth,
for the Culture of Perfect Teeth
has made my mouth a sin,
and I even feel shame myself.

"Your
dreams
predict
your
future.
You are
what you wish for."
And in the depths
of subversivity
of dental self destruction,
I somehow clutched to a wish
for the vanishing
of an array of external boneage
within my mouth.
I wished to dream a high price profession
that would allow me to set aside funds
for a fresh set of implants
after a resum-ation
of years of painful, slow, aggravating decay--

And--I am receiving
what I wished for.
The slipping and shifting,
from the whites,
to the yellows,
to the dark brownish blacks,
the relying and crutching
on exterior knowledges and technologies
to save me
to account for my vices
rather than me
clench to myself
and save myself--
not just for this moment,
but here on out--

rather than me to say--
I am my only beast
of self-management
of self-sustenance at hand--
and I have no one to help--
no one to hold me up
in my own island
of complexity--
my own internal dialogue
of conflict
and slight self destruction--
SO WHAT?!
so why not take care
and to "love thyself"
and internalize
this externality
this stained vice
this crippled smile
only with the eyes?

"The originals are always the best--
Replacing your teeth with implants
is like purposely trying
to acquire a knee implant."
"That's absurd!"
Sisters exist to keep the absurd mind
from tumulting into decay of thought.
A mental snap
before a filling chips out
and disturbs my
vulnerable stomach?

What to do?
Slow the decay?
Slow my mind?
Get my head off of sugar meth
with half the velocity of thoughts
running through
per second of time?
It's okay to think slowly
and thoughtfully
though the world spins
like a waffling top
by a El Capitan cliff
of doom--

What is my new vision?
It is my own choice
to live... with...
or live... without...
my own evolutionarily-designed
crunching and grinding cubes.
My vice shall be my vice,
yet minimize it!

I will care as much as I can care
for my own Beastly Self
and I will hold my frail, splintering bones in place
for the longest possible
that I foreseeably can
within my own possible means.

How can I bother to think
of sustaining the world in its entirety
if I cannot even bother to
concsciously sustain my own microcosmos?
to the highest of standards
and healthiest of means?

And in last resort,
in daunting screams of pain?
Then I shall go visit the dentist.

Don't be down on yourself.
Accept!
Embrace!
It is such paradoxical tragedy
no matter how much
I subversively deconstruct my teeth
my gums hold strong like
a child's fresh sand castle
that still has the capacity
to last long
in an ephemeral sense.

The dentist must become
my appendix,
an optional removal,
not my lungs,
not my emotions,
not my smiles,
not an unhealthy vice
that drags down the rest
of the blossoming
of my mind's heart.

UCSB Dental Clinic
Call for appointment 1:30pm
corporate time.
805-893-2891
10am May 21.
Start with Tooth #12.