I Brushed My Teeth This Morning Poem by Cat Singh

And isn't it amazing?
And isn't there something so blamelessly hopeful
about keeping oneself clean?
I haven't been taking care of myself lately,
just crashing into bed like a fallen tree.
Chop me up with a chainsaw
-tree blood spurting everywhere-
just to get me out of the way.
I've been rotting where I sit
and growing little fungi.
But this morning I brushed my teeth
and wasn't late for work.
My mouth is so cleanly that it aches.

When I was a kid, my sisters and I
watched a show about zombies
in the basement with my dad.
Blood ribboned out of necks
like rainbows bending in the sky,
and my sister remarked that blood
wouldn't do that in real life.
My dad said that maybe it would,
especially from the neck. Arteries and such.
My stepmom said he shouldn't
let us watch that kind of thing.
She grumbled and raised her pitch
like she was singing her complaints:
a sorrowful lament of a song.
I didn't brush my teeth much as a child.
I was a fallen sapling
-tree blood still stuck in my body-
Pick me up gingerly and move me over
to the side.

But I cleaned my face with water last night
before I went to bed.
I flossed and scrubbed
my grown-up and yellowed teeth.
And isn't it amazing?
And isn't there hope here
in my stained and open
mouth?