Anastasia Simms | Nightly Routine While Brushing Teeth

Nightly Routine While Brushing Teeth

CW: mental health, sexual abuse

How long does trauma live in the body?

Muscle memory says

panic

every time you’re short of breath,
panic

every time someone’s fingers

get too close to your collarbone,

panic

every time you catch a glimpse

of the toothbrush reaching your molars.

You think back to the boy in high school

who asked how your pussy smelled

when you were fourteen

and he was eighteen

and it was funny

because

panic

you were scared.

He’d stand behind you so his cigarette breath

fell on the back of your neck in staff meetings.

Why do men always go for the neck?

Is it instinctive to them? Maybe it’s evolution.

Generations later women have learned

panic

to hold their breath at the flick of a wrist

or a well-placed sigh.

You think back to—

Stop it.

You’re almost ready for bed.

You can’t think about that.

But muscle memory says

panic

even when you sleep now.

You don’t sleep now.

You don’t eat now.

You can’t breathe now.

You can’t
You can’t
breathe
…now
now

Now, now, now,

calm down.

You remember what that therapist said:

“Sometimes our bodies react to the memory

of danger like it’s still there when, really, it’s not.

Just breathe through it. Good. Now—”

Open your eyes.

In the mirror, you look gaunt.

You look shrunken. You pinch

your cheeks, and they just turn whiter.

You wonder how much longer

will I live in this body?

Anastasia Simms (she/her) is a poetry MFA student at Southern Illinois University where she teaches English and works in the Writing Center. Her work has previously been published in Luna Negra, a Lit Cleveland anthology, Military Experience and the Arts, Grassroots, Red Cedar Review, and Outrageous Fortune. When she is not working, she can be found cooking, singing, and watching movies with her dog.