Conversations With My Dentist
Each visit I make you ask if I still play the saxophone I wonder how you
always remembered the last time I stepped through these
glass doors I was only seventeen and have stopped playing music since I
don’t think I ever knew how much I’ve grown amongst these
white tables blue clothed assistants surfaces strewn with
metal tools cleaning gauze two screws jammed up the
roof of my mouth like a chasm left to fill to
pry open it wasn’t until six years later when I switched
dentists did I realize it was because you had
written in thin font the first line on my patient note
“in school band, plays the saxophone.” I remember how once I
cried in the corner of your office miserable asking you how I ought to
live when really I was just thirteen and terrified you told me it would all be
alright I thought those words silly and fairly beyond me but now I find myself
with a single sentence hanging loose from my hip I leave the room
stand by the counter pay the bill set the next appointment a year’s date away finally
hold the exit door open with no one on the other side
just to wait for it all to happen again.
always remembered the last time I stepped through these
glass doors I was only seventeen and have stopped playing music since I
don’t think I ever knew how much I’ve grown amongst these
white tables blue clothed assistants surfaces strewn with
metal tools cleaning gauze two screws jammed up the
roof of my mouth like a chasm left to fill to
pry open it wasn’t until six years later when I switched
dentists did I realize it was because you had
written in thin font the first line on my patient note
“in school band, plays the saxophone.” I remember how once I
cried in the corner of your office miserable asking you how I ought to
live when really I was just thirteen and terrified you told me it would all be
alright I thought those words silly and fairly beyond me but now I find myself
with a single sentence hanging loose from my hip I leave the room
stand by the counter pay the bill set the next appointment a year’s date away finally
hold the exit door open with no one on the other side
just to wait for it all to happen again.