Doctor Kazinski
there I was, sprawled out in the dim light of my room, bottle half-empty on the floor, the booze swimming hot in my veins, deep despair rolling over me in waves, and I thought of Doctor Kazinski in the East End, his little practice with the cracked linoleum and the waiting room that smelled of old magazines and fear.
I saw those posters on his walls, those faded posters curling at the edges, torn and wrinkled like they’d been through the war, showing these perfect white picket-fence families, dream families, grinning wide with teeth like piano keys, munching on carrots like happy rabbits in a field, brushing and flossing and caring for their teeth the way god intended every family to do, shining bright in the promised land of oral hygiene.
that was a long time ago, a long sad time ago.
now, in the empty years without those visits, without the courage to go back, the teeth go brittle, they crack and crumble like old sidewalks in the rain, fillings pop out and shatter into black dust, and the holes become traps, little dark pockets where chunks of decaying meat lodge and rot, festering away in the warm wet dark, places no floss can reach, no prayer can clean, just breeding grounds for the pain that’s coming, the pain that’s already here.
Christ, the thought of it hits me now, drunk and shaking—the way he leans in close with that steel pin in his hand, pushes it gentle-like into the nerve, and then the switch flips, the drill whines alive, that high screaming whine like a demon waking up, and it starts its long journey down, down, down to the centre of the earth, boring through bone and soul, grinding away at the rotten core of me.
God help me in this condition, this endless booze river I’m drowning in, this absolute fear that grips my gut like ice, this terror of the chair and the light and the mask and the rabbits on the wall—and that’s why I’ll never go back, never ever, to Doctor Kazinski and his rabbits, his posters, his drill that sings the song of hell straight into my skull.
just one more drink, and maybe the pain will sleep a little longer.
receding gum line,
remember, call the clinic,
addiction hotline.
