Impression<\/p>\n
He stood in front of me
\nmixing bowl and a wooden spoon
\nstirring stirring stirring what looked like
\ngrape HubbaBubba gum. Distinct color,
\nyou either know it or not, and I knew it.<\/p>\n
I think he stood there, blocking my exit,
\nafraid I would bolt at any moment. It\u2019s
\nnothing personal, I do not like dentists.
\nBad experiences as a child, hard to scrape
\naway memory scars, hard to open wide
\nwhile remembering.<\/p>\n
But here is this dentist, smiling, of course,
\nwearing a violet smock and mask, deep
\npurple gloves, in an office that pulses purple.
\nEverything from waiting room chairs to
\nwallpaper to clock, to pens they give out.<\/p>\n
I relax. He stirs. The goop looks like
\na childhood memory, a mouthful wad
\nof bubble gum, guaranteed to blow
\nthe biggest, bestest purple bubbles…
\nalso the stickiest mess to comb out
\nof my long hair but worth it. That tangy,
\nchemicalesque flavor like no other. Unique
\nlike the color. I open wide, he spatulas
\nthe goop in, tells me to stay open while it sets
\nthe impression. My mouth waters in protest,
\na rancid unpurple bile, a taste like something
\nthat should be locked up and buried under
\nthe ocean forever fills my mouth.<\/p>\n
I gag but he\u2019s gone. I calculate my odds
\nof leaping from the chair and spitting this vile,
\nanti-grape gum substance that has now adopted
\nan eye-watering smell that has me paralyzed.
\nHe comes back in, his smile arriving before him.
\nHe yanks, pulls, tugs at this leech form until
\nit disengages. I spit without command.<\/p>\n
He laughs. I know, it doesn\u2019t taste good
\nbut it looks good. His pearly whites are the last
\nI saw of him that day. I wonder if they still make
\ngrape HubbaBubba gum but it doesn\u2019t matter.
\nI\u2019ve never going back to that either.<\/p>\n
~ J R Turek Hour 17<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Impression He stood in front of me mixing bowl and a wooden spoon stirring stirring stirring what looked like grape HubbaBubba gum. Distinct color, you either know it or not, and I knew it. I think he stood there, blocking my exit, afraid I would…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1325,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1325"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140022"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140028,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140022\/revisions\/140028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}