Sonnet CXCIV

I waited for my blue retainer when
my braces fled. Two days had passed before
they put my piano sticker in the core
- a nice allusion to my hobby - then
they gave the jewel to me on Thursday, hence
I wore it like a prize – a painful ore
or gem – from months of suffering and gore
retrieved. This trinket was the treasured end!

Well, now I take it out and look at it
instead of wearing it like I should do.
But then, remembering my given rules,
I stick it in and swallow quite a bit.
My words are foreign, odd and strangely new,
the work of my retainer, brightly blue.

Sonnet CXCIII

Machinery and scissors, large and great.
had chipped away and shined and flew about
my teeth, obedient like frightened clouds,
directed to those instruments with hate,
a-brooding gloomily below their weight.
And yellow sparks of bonding glue had found
their nasty way, with water, to my round,
astonished eyes, insulted by the spray.

But it was done, at last. I rinsed my mouth.
Yet put back to the chair once more and shocked,
they put a pinkish mixture in my mouth
to take impressions, gagging me with love.
When done, they let me rinse my battered mouth
once more. And thus the braces were removed.

Sonnet CXCII

That day was dim and filled with crude remorse.
“I don’t want braces!” one could hear me pout,
but nonetheless, they took the spacers out.
I lay sprawled out while tools had screamed and roared.

Then I remembered, early on, before,
my teeth grew fast and fast they fall right out
and Mom had said, without a swaying doubt,
that all my teeth were pearly white - and more.

But then I fell at Sea World, chipped a tooth.
The poor replacement squeezed the rest around.
But sitting, flipping through a book of hues,
the times with braces in my head were found
and almost sad, I chose the solemn blue
retainer. Then my braces came right out.

Sonnet XCII

I do not jest when this I say to you:
all orthodontists lie! They’re scheming sprites.
Your money’s gobbled up like cotton food.
For what? To fix your faulty, shifted bite?

It’s garbage. I am pretty sure you’d live
with teeth than just aren’t straight or pearly white.
Don’t say it’s fashionable, superlative.
Sedating public masses isn’t right.

Conspiracies of dental masterminds…
how devious! They wave degrees around
to show their capabilities like shrines.
How treachery like wildfire abounds!

But no…don’t take my wise advice, you fool…
you WILL be sucked into a plot this cruel.