ouch

Here and now,

with numbness worn away

in ebbing time i feel the ache of

soothing loss,

a soft throbbing loss, thankfully

acute no more,

dethroned and out the door.

Upper left five

a pre-molar i have known a lifetime past,

a pocked enamel tombstone gone

to the place where memories

forget themselves.

A victim dare i say of

neglect and circumstance,

an absence where abscess 

threatened to infect,

a testament to decay.

So long brave warrior of bite,

you who have chomped upon 

all i have ever consumed,

you whose maceration never failed to

tenderise and splenderise each flavour.

Gone within the grip of pliered touch

anaesthetised by mercy 

and cracked by dental mastery,

a hostage released by fortunes cost.

Three hundred and seventy nine pounds worth of ouch.

A bounty paid to ease the troubled path,

and relieve the pressure.

Blood, barely a drop

as the aching joyously stopped,

replaced by numbness

and an ageing, widening gap.