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04.05.03 - 3:35 a.m.
there is nothing glorious about losing a tooth to an eating disorder. i'm not feeling rage at the moment, because i've been down this loss before. i'm not even in the mood to write up anything particularly elegiac..."ode to a lost tooth" does not sound quite as moving as keat's "ode to a nightingale". the more i grieve and groan about this tooth, i know the more ludicrous i will feel. because, i've been down this path before. i don't even want to embark in a war story angle of this tale ...especially since there is an actual war being fought as i write... nor do i want to make comparisons between my life that i chip away at daily and those soldiers abroad who'd give anything to insure that their own lives continued - in one piece. let me count the ways that my teeth (worn down, overdosed on stomach acids,and starved of calcium) break off and drop into the palm of my hand: while taking a bite of...: a bagel a poptart a forkful of rice a piece of toast and tonight... on a spoonful of hot chocolate mix! [and these are just the last bites i can remember off the top of my head. ] yes recovery is a battle, and i forget that i'm even fighting it or at least involved in it...and then another tooth falls, another unnecessary sacrifice, another mar to the few features i do take pride in - my smiles. you know smiles don't weigh a thing... the brightness of my smile doesn't even compute that way. i do love my smile, i always have. right now, i have to remember to keep on smiling, even though the worst part of this damage is that that the tooth part that fell out today was about a third of my front tooth. this makes the eighth tooth to have chipped or fallen out completely. someone please remind me how many teeth we as humans are given in our life time. maybe i can feel that melancholia again that i first felt when my 'adult' teeth grew in after my baby teeth fell out and i realized the magnitude back then (whenever it was, age 7 or 8 or 9) that these choppers were for life. i'd never have another set grow back in... so that would be about twenty years ago my choppers have given me and now have died prematurely. i can laugh out loud at the idea that i could just go out and get a crown (try at least $750 a shot) or inplants (around $900)... i did the math once over the hundreds of dollars i've already invested in my teeth, forked over to my dentist, and i could have had a brand new spanking car along time ago. but i'm not upset about that right now. not feelin' that. not feeling quite anything... not even the shock again each time i remember that this broken dead tooth fragment, in truth, IS a piece of my skull that i hold in my hand. i'm over the petty wars between bulimics and anorexics, the delusion that bulimics hold on to begrudingly at times, proudly at others, that they can purge for years at a time with no one the wiser and not a scratch or mark to show for it... before i go to bed tonight, i'll be sure to place this fallen tooth into the tiny jar i have where i keep other teeth that have fallen out. not under my pillow mind you. there's no such thing as the eating disorder tooth fairy. i never did believe down that road. i will though say that someone was looking out for me. i did know this tooth was 'gonna go' for the past few weeks and i had secretly prayed and hoped that at least my tooth would stay in my head so i could get through my big paper presentation without feeling self-conscious about my smile. that people wouldn't stare at the jutted lines of my teeth rather than listen to the ideas come out of my mouth. i got my wish last week. i gave a damn good performance and smiled without shame. now to learn how to smile again. all i have left to ask myself is seriously: will this finally be the last tooth to break, the last time i've got to deal with this, make up a new reason to describe my un(w)holly mouth at my young age, the last time that i again have to adjust my bite and figure out yet again what is the safest, least damaging-prone side of my mouth to chew food? again.
oh, no. not again.
yes, circling.
again.
MUSIC:
READING:
FEELING:
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