extraction site

i tongue at the loss. tip to tooth. tip to tooth. wiggling in search of the kind of pain i can microdose before the blackout hits. blood floods my mouth and for a minute i think i am going to drown choking on the taste of salt and iron. instead it’s pure ambrosia. it slides sticky and hot down my throat and settles firmly in my belly. a poison to kill all butterflies. it’s a funny thing, this grief i press into like a bruise. the soft white skin pulsing at the center. a fontanelle i can mold with my own two hands until it takes the form of something else entirely. until it’s unrecognizable and immutable. the meat rips the pulp from the gums. my tongue becomes a weapon of mass destruction. i don’t know that i can trust my hands with the wreckage. still, i spit into my palm and divine the future from the mangled roots. i no longer recognize the color of my own eyes when i see everything in shades of grey. all of these omens are bad ones. the tongue searches for familiar bone and slips into slick nothingness. something irreplaceable has been lost. i don’t know what. i never do know how to live without until suddenly i do. but i still sleep with a clenched fist under my pillow each night.