* words by Charlotte Haley, art by abigail hodges

crowns

Decay

You say

I feel pushed to apologise for my own problem

Sin of my doing

Undoing, more like

Unwinding unpeeling unsettling and stealing

My smile from me

Now I’m ashamed.

When I run my tongue over it feels like a bumpy under-road trailer park

A place nobody’d think of to live and yet here they are

Tucked under and away but tongue is their troll
And harassment like this can have no common good.

You say to me

Start doing what you know you should be.

Take over your own life’s want

With the will of the people!

But I can’t. I never brush my teeth and I don’t intend to start.