Baby teeth, p.1
Baby Teeth, page 1
BABY TEETH
First published in 2021 by
Little Island Books
7 Kenilworth Park
Dublin 6w
Ireland
© Meg Grehan 2021
The author has asserted her moral rights.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in a retrieval system in any form or by any means (including electronic/ digital, mechanical, photocopying, scanning, recording or otherwise, by means now known or hereinafter invented) without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
A British Library Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover illustration by Ana Jarén
Cover hand lettering by Holly Pereira
Typeset by Kieran Nolan
Proofread by Emma Dunne
Print ISBN: 978-1-912417-90-2
Little Island has received funding to support this book from the Arts Council of Ireland/An Chomhairle Ealaíon
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Weezy
for your endlessly inspiring friendship and kindness
One
There’s a specific type of
Shame
I think
That comes with realising
Exactly how little
You understand yourself
It tastes different
Sits heavier on the tongue
It’s
It’s embarrassing
One little life to figure out
One little self
But
For us
It’s sitting at a piano
And playing
Note for note
With a deftness belonging to someone
You’ve never met
But who knows you so deeply
A song
You’ve never heard
Sliding a book
Old and worn and unfamiliar
From a dusty shelf
And hearing the final words
Whispered in your head
Knowing that
This story
You know
You’ve never read
Lives in you
Somewhere
Stopping at a painting
Silent and restored
On a museum wall
And feeling a prickle
Behind your eyelids
Telling you
This isn’t the first time
You’ve seen it
Because last time
When the paint still gleamed wetly in the sunshine
It moved you
To tears
Trying new things
And feeling that gentle surge
Of familiarity
Feeling my fingers
Prickle with
Yes
I know this
Yes
I can do this
Yes
I have done this
But I haven’t
I haven’t done this
I haven’t done that
I haven’t done anything
That these fingers haven’t done before
It’s choosing
Over and over
Whether or not
To play the song
To read the book
To study the painting
Because this time
Now that you are you
Does it
Can it
Mean anything
Really
And will it get worse
Each time
The next time
The next life
The next you
Will they feel this
Even more
Even more
Profoundly
Distinctly
Will they feel
With such certainty
That they
Are nothing new
That really
They are nothing
At all
Is that all
You will give them
Is that all
I will give them
Two
This time
I am Immy
Usually
I think
I would know
What that means
By now
My boots don’t fit right
They rub my toes wrong
The leather still refusing to give in and
Be mine
But they’re keeping the rain out
And they make me feel tall
And I think I was meant to be tall
So I walk like my toes don’t hurt
I found my bag under the bed
Wedged in a corner
Missed in the clear out
I shouldn’t have it
It shouldn’t be mine
Anymore
But the strap is already worn
Right where I like to rub my thumb over it
When I’m nervous
So I dyed it
Beige to black
So the others wouldn’t recognise it
And I said I found it
In a charity shop
And maybe an eyebrow
flicked up in recognition
But I wasn’t looking
It’s cold in the flower shop
It smells of petal and root and dirt
It’s cold and it smells like the ground and it welcomes me in the way the ground will not
And I like it
I like it
It’s cosy
It feels
Nice
It feels
safe
I touch petals and stems
I like the red flowers
They remind me of Freddie
I like the orange ones
They remind me of Henry
I’m not sure which would remind someone
Of me
I wonder if maybe
I’m the bits under the ground
In the dark
The bits that hide
The bits that burrow
I pick up a yellow rose
And hear the words
“That one suits you”
And I turn
I turn
And there
There
Is a girl
I thank her
Because it’s a beautiful flower
And I hope that
Thank you
Is the right thing to say
She looks at me
And I look at her
And we look at each other
And something happens
I don’t know what
But I know
When I look back
This moment
Looking at her
Will be the moment
When it happened
Whatever it
Is
It happened here
It happened with her
She’s cute
She’s very
Cute
Her dress long and loose
Her eyes hazel and warm
Warm and intense
Intense and
Cute
She’s cute
I ask for flowers
A bouquet
Yellow red orange
Fire flame flicker
She nods and turns
She picks them carefully
From pots lined up
Covering the wall
She wraps them up
In brown paper
She asks who they’re for
I lie and say my father
Because I don’t know what else to say
What else to call him
She smiles and says
“Not a girlfriend?”
And I blush
Shake my head
Try to hold eye contact
Fail
Gulp
Try again
She smiles at me
I think I smile back
I mutter that I don’t have a girlfriend
Then I worry that I sound like the idea
Of having one
Doesn’t sound good
Right
To me
So I scramble
I blurt
Not that I don’t want one
Fast
Too fast
Loud
Too loud
And she smiles
And I smile
And I come back a few days later
And a few days later
And soon the house
Is full of flowers
And Freddie is
“Begging, Immy, I am begging”
Me to ask her out
But I don’t
I won’t
I can’t
I do
I arrive as the shop is closing
And she smiles
And she waves
And she mouths
Wait
And I wait
Of course
I wait
It’s raining
It’s raining
Like it knows
And I think about how
Walking home in the rain
With either
A yes
Or a no
Clutched in my hand
Burning on my tongue
Sitting in my chest
Will feel
Dramatic
either way
Either way
When she comes out
She looks like everything I’d ever wanted
All the different people I’d made up for myself
All the lives and pasts and futures and versions versions versions
Carried around in my head my chest my bones my eyelids
She looks like them all
All at once
She looked like everything
I could ever want
Standing in front of me
With dark eyes
And nervous fingertips
Poking shyly from beneath her too-long sleeves
Her boots
Already wet from the rain
Rolling slowly back and forth
Toe to heel and back again
Her lips
Set in a sharp line
She shook and swayed and moved in only the tiniest ways
Imperceptible
A leaf on a windless day
Still moving
But still
She is still
She stands so
Sure
She makes
No sense
To me
Really
She is
Too much
Too good
Too nice
Too
Much
But I feel
For a second
With a certainty I could never voice
That I know her
Entirely
already
So I open my mouth
And I ask
And then I walk home
A yes
A yes that came with a smile and a hug and a Saturday morning
Safe in my hand
Warm on my tongue
Nestled in my chest
Freddie is delighted
Henry is concerned
As expected
As expected
Saturday
Takes its time
I try on outfits
Twirl in front of the mirror
Like a girl in a movie
Even if the mirror
Can only show me shadows
Saturday
Arrives
And brings the sun with it
I wear a dress
To feel
Special
And I worry
Up until the second I see her
In a long skirt
A loose top
Glowing
Sunlight dancing over her skin
And I breathe
And I breathe
And I bite my lip
And when she reaches me
I say
Hi
And I smile
And she says
Hi
And she smiles
And it all
All of it
All of this
Begins
Just like that
She sips coffee
I gulp tea
She laughs
I stammer
I blush
I snort when I try to laugh
She smiles
Even brighter
She tells me about her family
The aunt she lives with
Who owns the flower shop
She tells me about working there
About colour and dirt and thorn
About art
About paint and brush and charcoal
About herself
About softness and light and secrets
We laugh and we talk and we talk and we laugh
And we are together
So together
And it’s easy
So soon
It’s easy
And I wonder
What I was ever
Nervous about
Three
Henry always buys pants
A couple inches
Too short
Some lingering habit
Ghosts in his bones
We think
“I can’t be that tall though”
He says
As he folds them neatly
With all the rest
“Let us buy them next time”
We say
But he never does
Just keeps living
The tiniest bit
in the tiniest way
In a body
Long gone
It’s funny
What stays
Filmy and slippery
Elusive
But stubborn
Just loud enough
To always be heard
When it wants to be
To always make sure
Henry has slightly chilly ankles
We buy him socks a lot
Every time we see a pair
With especially bright colours
Or especially cute designs
Or especially silly puns
We try to out-do each other
Find the most garish or the most adorable
the most ridiculous
And he always wears them
Proudly on display beneath his too-short pants
With his perfectly ironed button-ups
And his shiny shoes
We don’t have a lot of stuff
We start over
Clean
Every time
When one of us Goes
The others
Shake out their existence
Dust it all off
Box it all up
Give it all away
Spread it all out
We’re all over the city
We’re in charity shop basements
Strangers’ attics
Dumps and museums
We box our friends up
And we give them away
And we wait for them to come back
And we start over again
We die
We start again
We die
we start again
We find each other
We haunt each other
We hold each other
We forget
We forget
We try not to mourn the ones we lose
We try to love the ones we have
We die
We start again
We find
We haunt
We hold
I wonder who I’ve been
What I’ve been
What I’ve done
I wonder if the small voice
That reaches for every piano
Broke someone’s heart
If the deep voice that shies away from red things
Hurt someone
If the airy voice that hates the rain
Killed someone
I wonder what these bones have done
I wonder what I carry
I wonder who I am
History
Feels
Like possibilities
The vampire in the castle
The madman in the trees
The head on the stake
Or in the basket
The witch by the sea
The woman in the lake
The boy in the boat
The
The
The
Were they me
Are they me
Did they carry these bones
Are they beneath this skin
I wonder
How much of me
They make up
How much of me
I can claim
How much
I want to
I try to be good
I promise
I do
I don’t cause pain
I try
I don’t hurt
I try
I am polite
Please and thank you
Excuse me and bless you
I am polite
I try
I promise
I try
I try to make up for it all
I don’t know
Exactly
What I need to make up for
What I need to amend
So I try
I try
To fix it all
Make up for it all
Make amends
Make amends
Make amends
Freddie says it’s
Stupid
He says
I am me you are you
I am only me you are only you
And I’m only responsible you are only responsible
For what I do what you do
What I’ve done what you’ve done
What I will do what you will do
Freddie says
Henry doesn’t say anything
I think maybe Henry
Understands
Maybe Henry
Gets it
But Henry has been Henry
Much longer than I have been Immy
So maybe Henry
Has less to make up for
I think Freddie
Probably understands too
I think Freddie
Just doesn’t want to
Freddie is only a little older than me
This time
He’s been Freddie
For twenty-three years
And I’ve known him
For most of them
Freddie cooks
It’s his
