flossing before bed

i think about you every time i floss my teeth because you told me to stop using the picks but i still use the picks & my dentist said it’s fine, but i know your grandfather was a dentist & sometimes i think about the poem you wrote about his dementia & i wonder if you started writing again or if you’re just living in a shadow painted gold next to the hollywood sign. i wonder if you even have the same reflection because you no longer have the same projection. or maybe it was just a candy-coated lens. all of my exes hated you but my mom loves you & i love you & we all hate my exes & i saw a guy who looked like your ex & i wondered how his dog is doing & how you’re doing & if you’ve realized the others gave you fleas yet? i mean really, who hates a dog that much? you picked your skin raw & thought you had bed bugs & spiraled down the staircase like a true descendant & the pickle juice is sour & home is complex & i’m sorry for what i did or everything i did or being who i am or whatever it was that sealed the envelope once & for all. the map faded before we could find the next turn. but have you crawled through your own umbilical cord yet? it’s probably more difficult when you don’t know whose body lies at the other end. did you ever turn your keyboard back on? i still remember a pathetic version of you. it grossed me out because you were always greater than the sum of your parts: grandiose, opulent, shining. i’m the one who claws. i’m the one who grovels in soot-stained gravel up to my neck in someone else’s feces & ashes. you weren’t supposed to be human the way we’re all just girls. but humiliation is your greatest fear & you make your own submission look like raw domination. while i just toss & turn & echo. excavate. but i’m okay with humiliation. it’s not a kink, just an acceptance of my own imperfections & my longing for human connection which i think you must have given up on because you surround yourself with rigidity & flaccidity & also vapidity. they didn’t even know you. not really. not when the flesh fell away & all that was left was bones & the genetic inheritance. but now i don’t know you anymore. & the joke is on me again.