so the filling that’s bound a molar for the last decade chipped and i felt the heat from my tea spill through the enamel into whatever’s inside a tooth – like rain water pours into an underground cave – that slip and rush of air, like when you dig a hole too close to anything trying to live and expose root-tangle to the sun for the first time to throb kind of like a heartbeat.

so when i went to the dentist and opened my mouth like an offering he said your teeth are worn down and i said i clench sometimes (like i haven’t been doing that this whole time, it’s all pulled tight like roots deep in the dirt) and i said i’m trying to stop

but the sand only shifts and keeps taking it, so i tuck everything into my jaw: the weight of memory, the snarl of crabgrass and its tillering while seed-spread brushes through the fissures.