dental pick
i’ve used dental picks more often
to clean out spent weed from my pipe than
to clean junk from between my mostly rotten teeth
at the end of the day i’m too high to remember to floss
i’m not in any pain
it’s a good inside joke between myself and myself
that every time i go to smoke and clean out the pipe
with one of those dental picks
i realize i’ve used them more often
to clean out spent weed from my pipe than
to clean junk from between my mostly rotten teeth
ha ha ha
yeah
both ways
i feel an immense connection to the world right now
in this exact fucking moment
i love it
it’s a pulling in my chest, a cord connected
to everyone i know and those who know me
i feel grateful though i am so distanced from each
it’s a connection, like a call i wished someone would make
the phone in my heart answering, starting that connection
i want to hug people
i want to laugh until i cry with people
and i know like all calls this connection will end
like kind of how i don’t call my dad often
and he doesn’t call me often
but we talk and i love it when we do
we say this thing––
“you know the phone works both ways, right?”
and that’s how i feel about this connection i have to the world
it works both ways
and i feel it now
it has come to me
so when it’s gone i have to be willing
to send out a connection to someone like me
maybe my dad.
—
Tex Gresham is the author of Heck, Texas (coming Sept 2020 from Atlatl Press). He has other work online and almost never posts on Twitter as @thatsqueakypig. He lives in Las Vegas. www.squeakypig.com
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