America is my mouth.
A dumpster fire teetering at the edge of a cliff on the rim of a volcano, above a trio of colliding fault lines: Greed, Neglect, and Crippling Debt.
Two epic tragedies that began with atrocity and horror.
It wasn’t all terrible, of course. Especially for the whitest of whites—all pearly and prosperous.
One thing Young America had over Young Mouth: honesty. All that cruelty, violence, and indignity were naked and pure. Celebrated.
Mouth’s crimes were devious. Conspiratorial.
I used to trick my mom into thinking I was brushing my teeth. I’d stand there in my PJs, with the sink on—holding my toothbrush—for what seemed like hours.
That toothbrush, by the way, was Evel fucking Knievel.
The energy and focus I put into guiding Knievel’s X-2 rocket from its trusty launchpad into the sky, was far more intense or taxing than what I was supposed to be doing. Piloting it through soap bars asteroid belts and crashing into No More Tears bottles, I imagined all the things Evel could do. Except, y’know…
Clean a mouth.
Because I never. Ever. Brushed.
And like that cursed and ubiquitous 80s/90s line dance, my toothbrush? IT’S ELECTRIC.
And I didn’t floss until I was 27.
Gross.
We’re quite a pair, ’Murica and mouth:
Big. Loud. Entitled.
Vast expanses. Crumbling infrastructure.
Stuffed with pizza and rage.
Raw nerves. Rapidly aging. Repellent blotches and hateful dreck as far as the eye can see.
And yet, still charming.
Memories of what used to be—could have been.
A brighter glimmer. A wider grin.
The years flew by, didn’t they? ’Murica and Mouth were off to the races. Progress and prowess. Nature and nurture. Time and technology.
We expanded so fast, the root problems and burgeoning decay blurred into the background. When growing growth grows at breakneck speed, the horrors are hidden. Problems pass. Wrongs whizz by.
I’m reminded of that classic poem from days of yore:
You see I can't slow down
Got to keep moving, baby
Can't slow down
No, I can't slow down— Lionel Richie, “Can’t Slow Down”
In those golden years and salad days, when basic care and attention would have made all the difference—and when ’Murica/Mouth could have saved themselves and guaranteed a healthy future—nothing was done.
After all that growth—while we built and binged, frolicked and fought, danced and dreamed and drank the actual Kool Aid—no one stepped in to stave off dystopia… or dis cavity.
La Boca y El Pais opted for stopgaps—expensive and uncomfortable, but quick.
The snowball was hurtling downhill.
Eventually, warning signs started popping up and creeping through.
Red flags. Fissures and cracks. Proof of rot and ruin—damage and decay, captured on film. Anyone with eyes could see where the sidewalk ended.
January 2025
I moved to Florida so Mouth could be closer to that other epicenter of evil.
On Election Day, I had my first appointment with New Dentist. I suspected the prognosis wouldn’t be pretty, but was still clinging to a threadbare hope: maybe I’d escape with a warning and a shrug. Ugh.
We all feared the rot ran deep—dentally, nationally—but we kept clinging to some story about hope or silver lining, accountability with teeth.
New Dentist peeked and poked and scraped and x-rayed—while Fuck Face preened and spewed his signature venom in the Rotunda.
During the godforsaken Oath of Office, New Dentist hit me with the results. Because of open plan office design, the staff of Dental Care Group Aventura heard her deliver the ugly truth: I’m screwed.
Mouth and Country—screwed as screwed can be.
The only way to avoid total and permanent collapse is to endure years—maybe decades—of agony, loss, and death. And it’s going to cost trillions.
I could see the tidal wave. If I didn’t act soon, an ocean of periodontal magma would swallow this face, this body, and everyone I’ve cared for, worked with, or accidentally bumped into during my half-century of adjustable chairs, novocaine needles, drill-baby-drillings, clippy bibs, rinse bowls, and root canals so deep they’d make Panama and Suez shudder.
My life is a parade of extractions, restrictions, pulsating pain and no goddamn lollipop to show for it, because DIABEETUS.
This land is your land.
This land is my mouth.
No matter what we do—or don’t do—there will be pain.
Lots of it. Pain pain pain.
Over the coming weeks and months, our problems will be glaring.
Oh, Holy Fright. Abscess Adam, reporting for ouchies.
But hey. HEY, I SAY! I’m tough. Determined.
I won’t give up—on my country or my kisser.
As long as there’s hope for salvaging a smile.
I’m in it to win it, at least for a while.
Uh oh. It’s time. They’re calling me.
I’m headed back to the chair.
Hope it doesn’t hurt.
I don’t like today.
Feel like spit.
Ooooooof. Y(our) poor mouth/country. ♥️
👍❤️🙏🏼