Attrition

She was fractured

beyond restoration.

At the apex of anxiety,

she made confessions

on hands and knees

with a toothbrush,

scouring every quadrant

of the carpeted floors

followed by

scrubbing the

tooth-white sealant

of grouted tiles

in the bathroom

where she

extracted the pain

into porcelain,

again.

Bleaching every discoloration

in sight

in a futile attempt

to excise the stains

that blemished

her porous heart,

she managed the stress

as it was decaying

the cavity of her soul.

At the cusp

of the disease,

reduced to pulp,

scaled down

to skin and bones,

with every nerve

exposed at the root,

she would bite her flesh

and buccal

herself in

for the debridement to begin:

long nights

of

eroding her enamel

in the name of attrition,

until it was time

to smile again,

occluding her anguish

behind polished veneer.

Though crowned

as victor of volition

for the careful calculus

of every calorie consumed,

she was incapable

of making a dentin

her abscessing over

every fault that plagued her.