I Am Your Toothache - Listen

Hello there. Welcome. I would like to introduce myself.

I am your toothache. I throb like a bitch and yell at you until you can no longer think straight ... until you curse the day you were born. I convince you to hold that mouth of yours hard, and to get something cold to press up against your cheek. I have you wincing and grimacing, and then finally calling the dentist in a mad plea for relief. I originated with a mother's plea for you to brush up and down, and then a family dentist's suggestion to floss and floss often. Now I'm your toothache, and I'm one mean ass-kicker. 

Hello.

I am your weeds in your garden. I grow somehow despite the lack of rainwater and despite the death of all other green and growing things. I grow and grow in your garden, to ultimately take over the beauty there. I show up real ugly in an otherwise pleasant garden setting. Among the pretty flowers and blossoming shrubbery, I look like drab, lifeless green and brown thorny leaves. I'm an inconvenient truth in your yard, and you hate me. Too bad. I'm here. And I'm here because you let the garden go, you silly person.

Hi.

I am the ants in your kitchen. I am a mass of small black rolling insects that troll up and down the counters eating up the crumbs and crap you've left behind. I just know when you leave the space and when you've said the magic phrase: "Oh, I'll clean that up in the morning." Once I hear that sloppy sentence come slobbering out of your lazy-ass mouth, I am charged into action. Time to get the army and charge full steam ahead, straight for your butter knife, your sugar bowl and all those pie crumbs that didn't make it into your pie hole. So have a rest. We'll see ya in the morning.

Hello fine sir and madam.

I am the pain in your heart. I am the longing. For something better. For something new. I am the hurt that resides in the chest as you wish for something different. Something different than the way it is. Perhaps it's a longing for something familiar, known such a long time ago. Peace. Harmony. Abundance. Wealth. Health. A natural state of being. The way it was, and the way it truly is deep down. I am the pain you experience when you let the attention slip away towards other distractions, to judgments and to scorn and to blame. I'm the pain you have when you've neglected the good or the other messages that would have kept you on track: free of weeds, pesky insects and tartar on the teeth.

I am the Universe. I give you messages all the time. Unemotional. Unattached. But loving you all the same. And all the time. I mean ALL the crazy flippin' time.

Listen...

I am here...

I am the weeds in your garden. I am the ants in the kitchen. I am your neck-ache, your heartache, your side-ache, your wrist-ache, your headache.  I am your toothache. I am the one trying to get you to move, to do something ... for yourself, for others, for a community and for humanity.

I am the Universe.

I am you.

James Anthony Ellis is a writer and producer living in San Diego, CA. He just went to the dentist and is doing much, much better. He can be reached at www.LegacyProductions.org.