The Good Ol' Tooth Fairy Days

I remember my childhood friends. Playing hide-and-seek outside till dark. Not a care in the world. The day's disagreements, debates, and fights--forgotten with the next sunrise. Those were the good ol' days. As taken for granted as teeth.

I remember my siblings. The mirth, tumults, fun, and discord, between which, amid clashes of dualities--immiscible emotions--I remember the love. Those were the good ol' days.

I remember losing baby teeth. How my tongue would glisten-glide over the smoothy-ness of the membrane left between two hold-outs. Like a new life form had been procreated, molted, shedding a carapace, exposing shiny new substrates to shiny new excitement of overwhelming changes. Those were the good ol' days.

I remember when girls changed, from competing alien life at odds with my species, into something worth considering. Turns out that aliens have been living side-by-side with us all this time. Different brains don't speak the same language, and we can't even figure out how to talk with dolphins! Still, things learned in new languages--and new synapses--were the good ol' days.

I remember my first kiss. From her, not me: I was blindsided. A whole new level of synapsing the shiny-new.

It was a juggernaut of invasion but, instead of one that conquered, plundered, and laid waste, welcomed me into I-don't-know-what something-ness, as if I were the stranger in my own universe, where--before--everything had run smoothly.

No longer!

A new discovery--trailblazing New World destiny. Two beings--separate--coming together in singularity of contact: via the portal by which we suckled!

Before "running the bases" had ever occurred to me.

The smoothy-ness and glisten-gliding-ness of lips on membranes between two beings. Like losing new baby teeth and my baby-ness. Another molting. Those were the good 'ol days.

I remember pushing past infatuation, passion, and whirlwinds into real love--a full mouth of mature teeth, ready to chew up, and be nurtured by, the food of the gods. The good ol' days.

I remember my children, amazed at birth and new synapses wiring together, engendering discovery. Those were the good ol' days.

And now everything, including teeth, require my special care--the kind casually ignored before. They have to last me for the rest of my good ol' days.