This poem was originally published in discontinued magazine, Oletangy Review's Winter 2016 issue.
I couldn't get a screen grab, as the website is no longer available.
There is metal hell in my mouth
Seems like eternity until they’re out
My orthodontist is a masochistic auld trout
She invites me to sit in the torturers chair
What choice do I have? There’s no other way
To get my teeth straight
It reclines back, I lie and wait
For the wrenching, tightening of my braces.
My tongue has a squiggly cut
A bar in the rooth of my mouth I did suck
Unconsciously, in agony, it takes guts
To come here, I must be nuts
Ratchett laughs, it’s my own fault really.
My own fault? That I was born with wonky teeth?
Yes, if you wobbled your baby teeth when you were wee.
And it’s you that’s sucking that bar, not me.
She tells me. Just cause she has a university degree
Means she can have sadism and superiority.
Disfigurement, it better be worth it when it’s done.
Because years of braces is not fun.
I’m a gleekit lookin’ geek, it’s only just begun
Hell is not fire, brimstone and gunk
But the blood red braces that are in my mouth!
Cover Image by Sophie McNicol