IT WAS NEVER ABOUT THE TEETH I was never anything special Just ordinary, almost invisible A child who learned to take up less space An adult who learned to disappear without a trace I took care of my teeth Always clean, always neat As if something inside me Had to remain acceptable But she always found them first Cutting through everything else I'd say “They're ugly,” she told me “You can see it yourself.” And when I brushed harder It became my hair Then my clothes Then the way I stood There was always something That needed fixing Every time I defended one thing She simply moved to another And somehow, after enough years A comment became a fact Not an opinion Not a mood Not something you could question A fact. I learned to keep my mouth closed In photographs I hid behind my hands As if even my smile Could be turned against me And slowly I stopped asking Whether any of it was true It was never about the teeth It was never about the hair It was about the voice that kept repeating “You are not quite right in here.” It was never about the teeth It was about what words can do When you hear them long enough You start believing they are you A gift for my teeth As if correction could pass for love On a dental chair in January “Hollywood,” she said. So I tried Because I always tried But it felt like being adjusted Into somebody more acceptable A little less visible A little easier to control It tasted like dust And obedience The denture stood there in my bathroom Like evidence nobody wanted to name And I cleaned it anyway Because somehow I still believed That neglect would prove her right Then my brother said: “I would've taken the money.” And something shifted Not pain Clarity. I was holding something That had never really been about teeth It was about everything I had been taught to question about myself It was never about the teeth It was never about the hair It was about a voice that stays inside you Even when nobody's standing there It was never about the teeth It was about memory and shame About hearing something often enough Until you mistake it for your name First my teeth Then my hair Then my body Then the way I spoke There was always something waiting Something just around the corner Something I could never get quite right And I carried it like truth For most of my life Until one day I understood: Volume is not truth. Repetition is not truth. Cruelty is not truth. And somebody else's voice Does not become mine Just because I heard it for years. It was never about the teeth It was never about being beautiful It was about a child learning early That love could come with conditions It was never about the teeth It was about finally seeing through The voice I carried all those years Was never really me The house is quiet. A cat. A radiator. No voices in the hallway. No one telling me what to fix. And for the first time... Nothing in my mouth Needs fixing. Nothing in my face. Nothing in my body. Nothing in my voice. Nothing in me needs permission to exist.
