The Teeth Collector

Part I
The girl's face was plump with rage
and the smell of something sour
bristled the other girl's nose hairs.
This one, she thought, has told that corner
to sharpen up and collect teeth.

Part II
The white teeth hung like talisman
in her mouth, and she cut her tongue
on the words as they flung wildly
from her throat. The wasn't her,
all this venom, she thought,
but the smarting felt good in her belly,
but it also made her sick.
She tried not to think about that.

Instead, she let the dark knot roll
over on itself, over and over again
as it unfurled and furled
from her gut out across the air
and into another. None of it
made sense, of course, except for the tinge
of sadness and despair crouching
somewhere between the "ooh"
in "you" and "eee" in "me."

And when her voice was hoarse
and her gut sufficiently emptied
(but still very much coiled)
she stood up to leave.

"There," she seemed to say
with the hot tear in her left eye.
"Now, we're even."

Part III
"But you don't get it?" the other thought.
"This was not all for dark;
this was for light. This is for light.
It isn't just exhaustion,
exhaustion of the knots, the venom
and the wretched fumbling in the dark;
it is that I have no need for it anymore.
I have given it up
like one gives up cigarettes, I suppose.
The temporary high one rides on toxic fumes
doesn't feel like pleasure anymore;
it's like the veil was removed
once and for all,
I took one last drag,
rode the high with all senses alert
and finally felt it for what it was:
pleasure masking pain.
There is no need for it anymore.
And then, it was okay
to wave the white flag because
I could be honest about what it was
I was surrendering.
I don't have to tell the world how I got there;
in fact, I shouldn't tell the world.
Why give away what I fought so hard to find?"

Part IV
It was like this:
When she began to put into piles
what was hers, what was theirs
and what was his, she felt freed
from that thing
(and these were piles of thinklets,
of course, not piles of actual things).
And so, free from that thing,
free from lugging it around all over
the place, as penance, as anchor,
as ocean above and below and
everywhere in between,
she arrived at an open field.
An open field of her own design.

Yes, there were - there are lotus petals
and starbursts and stalks bowing
in the breeze. Of course, there is love.
It is not a place for sharpened teeth,
no matter how wounded their owner may feel.
It is not a place for fear-mongering
talismen or the stench of a grudge.
It is not the place for sick bellies or meanness.

It is soft light and edgeless corners.
It is pinks and yellows and mandarins.

Part V
It is hers, and yet not hers
(just like that woe once was); it just is.