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Is It Bad If My Gums Bleed When I Floss?
"I used to have twenty-one teeth.
The tooth fairy gave me ten dollars for the pain—
of parting, of stitching me up,
I still don’t know."
This light horror, dentistry-themed poetry collection follows the story of Netty from childhood to adulthood as she struggles to accept her queer identity, running from her decaying relationship with her parents and herself. Periodontal pockets deepening by the day, Netty grows up accommodating for the pain. Written by Blue Sunshine, Is It Bad If My Gums Bleed When I Floss? is the collection for those who have questioned their queer identity, endured traumatic abuse, and are trying to find healing on the other side. Every cavity can be filled, every missing tooth can be restored, every infection can be flushed away.
The tooth fairy gave me ten dollars for the pain—
of parting, of stitching me up,
I still don’t know."
This light horror, dentistry-themed poetry collection follows the story of Netty from childhood to adulthood as she struggles to accept her queer identity, running from her decaying relationship with her parents and herself. Periodontal pockets deepening by the day, Netty grows up accommodating for the pain. Written by Blue Sunshine, Is It Bad If My Gums Bleed When I Floss? is the collection for those who have questioned their queer identity, endured traumatic abuse, and are trying to find healing on the other side. Every cavity can be filled, every missing tooth can be restored, every infection can be flushed away.
104 pages, Paperback
Published May 15, 2024
2 people want to read
About the author
Blue Sunshine
2 books5 followersBlue Sunshine is a poet currently residing near Atlanta, Georgia. Their work explores trauma, queerness, and relationships through the lens of horror, constructing haunting stories around images of the body.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 10, 2024
I love a collection that stays on theme, Sam Sax excelled at this in Pig. This collection is artfully written. Each poem carefully crafted to reveal a little bit about the narrator. You must continue to delve deeper and deeper to pursue that rich connection. It felt like I was the tooth fairy myself. Continuing to show up at night and collect treasures left by the narrator.
There is something very eerie and relatable about the narrator who once filled her mouth with toys and candy, progressing into adulthood and then filling that same mouth with grout and pebbles and spite.
I adored the poem Balloon. It was really special. I cannot butcher it with quotations here, so just pick up a copy and read the poem in length.
Now I am left craving a romance poetry collection where the narrator falls in love with their patient and all the challenges that ensue.
I’ll leave you with this from “Sticky:”
Aren’t you tired of hiding all those secrets in the pockets
beneath your gums?
Bravo.
There is something very eerie and relatable about the narrator who once filled her mouth with toys and candy, progressing into adulthood and then filling that same mouth with grout and pebbles and spite.
I adored the poem Balloon. It was really special. I cannot butcher it with quotations here, so just pick up a copy and read the poem in length.
Now I am left craving a romance poetry collection where the narrator falls in love with their patient and all the challenges that ensue.
I’ll leave you with this from “Sticky:”
Aren’t you tired of hiding all those secrets in the pockets
beneath your gums?
Bravo.
November 27, 2024
Blue Sunshine's "Is It Bad If My Gums Bleed When I Floss?" Will fascinate readers. Blue's poetry is open, vulnerable, and has layers that leave room for multiple interpretations. It will leave readers curious as the imagery will captivate an audience to keep turning the pages. There is a charming complexity throughout the speaker's voice. The poems themselves drive the narrative as the speaker ages throughout the years and changes through life experiences.
June 12, 2024
(Yes, it is bad if your gums bleed when you floss.)
This poetry collection is utterly stunning. It gathers together so many ideas that I love to see written about (including but not limited to: the entanglement of love, desire, pain, grief, trauma and healing, and the tragedy of memory and lost youth) into one incredible, cohesive, and connected experience. It follows a dental student, Netty, through her life, from childhood crushes and naivete to sexual desire and sexual trauma, to a beautiful point even with this pain with the love of her life. It is a breathtaking experience, the kind of work you have to be curled up with, at a time and place where it’s possible for you to put it down and close your eyes and breathe deeply before you keep reading. It made me cry multiple times, at this intersection between recognition, tragedy, and joy. I’m happy for Netty and heartbroken for her and everything in between. These poems portray Netty’s humanity in such an intimate, honest, and internal way.
As someone who doesn’t read poetry that often, I was absolutely delighted to understand the narrative that runs through each poem: it is understandable, never confusing, and never so on the nose that it feels like spoon feeding. It gives so much meaning without getting tangled in cross-metaphor, it paints vivid emotion without becoming melodramatic, it draws striking images without getting stuck in descriptive tangent, and it is heartbreakingly earnest without ever crossing into cliche. Behind each pause, space, repeated phrase, and bolded letter is a careful intent—Blue is an artist creating the most authentic and meaningful art-experience with deliberation and rhythm; someone who knows how to best communicate experience in a way that’s both receivable and gut wrenching. Each poem feels essential to the work as a whole; the collection is infinitely more than the sum of its parts because each poem is so deeply interconnected with each other poem: Netty wouldn’t be the same without every single entry.
It is about so many things—exploration of the development of queer desire and comp-het, the way a trauma follows you and the strength it takes to live and love even if it cannot leave you, and, of course, teeth—but most of all it feels like a comprehensively tragic and hopeful collection about the heartbreaking process of growing up. It is steeped in grief for Netty herself. For the Netty before she learned the bad things of the world. It is full of sadness and still recognizes that everyone moves through this loss of innocence; everyone begins wishing their baby teeth meant something more to someone (“I guess I just wanted it to mean more to you / than it did.” (“2004”)) and ends up aware of the darker ideas surrounding keeping a child’s teeth (“I think I get it—what kind of / person / keeps a child’s teeth?” (“Daddy”)). Everyone makes mistakes, or gets taken advantage of, and finds a way to blame themselves, and everyone mourns and misses who they were before the pain. Ultimately, this poetry collection feels to me like an extensive, difficult, beautiful journey to find who Netty is not outside or minus her sadness and her self-grief, but who she is with it. It’s about finding love that doesn’t evoke gore and destruction.
Though it’s difficult to pick favorite poems in a collection that feels as if each poem is most valuable next to each other poem in the collection, I’d have to pick “Career Day,” “Adolescence,” “Anthropophagus,” “Apostrophe,” “Sticky,” “Butterbugs” “Coffee Stains,” and “Things That Don’t Mean Anything At All” (it should say something that I had to list THIS MANY favorite poems). Each made me take a breath before I kept reading. I’m absolutely in love with every one of them.
I love this dearly and I will never forget it.
This poetry collection is utterly stunning. It gathers together so many ideas that I love to see written about (including but not limited to: the entanglement of love, desire, pain, grief, trauma and healing, and the tragedy of memory and lost youth) into one incredible, cohesive, and connected experience. It follows a dental student, Netty, through her life, from childhood crushes and naivete to sexual desire and sexual trauma, to a beautiful point even with this pain with the love of her life. It is a breathtaking experience, the kind of work you have to be curled up with, at a time and place where it’s possible for you to put it down and close your eyes and breathe deeply before you keep reading. It made me cry multiple times, at this intersection between recognition, tragedy, and joy. I’m happy for Netty and heartbroken for her and everything in between. These poems portray Netty’s humanity in such an intimate, honest, and internal way.
As someone who doesn’t read poetry that often, I was absolutely delighted to understand the narrative that runs through each poem: it is understandable, never confusing, and never so on the nose that it feels like spoon feeding. It gives so much meaning without getting tangled in cross-metaphor, it paints vivid emotion without becoming melodramatic, it draws striking images without getting stuck in descriptive tangent, and it is heartbreakingly earnest without ever crossing into cliche. Behind each pause, space, repeated phrase, and bolded letter is a careful intent—Blue is an artist creating the most authentic and meaningful art-experience with deliberation and rhythm; someone who knows how to best communicate experience in a way that’s both receivable and gut wrenching. Each poem feels essential to the work as a whole; the collection is infinitely more than the sum of its parts because each poem is so deeply interconnected with each other poem: Netty wouldn’t be the same without every single entry.
It is about so many things—exploration of the development of queer desire and comp-het, the way a trauma follows you and the strength it takes to live and love even if it cannot leave you, and, of course, teeth—but most of all it feels like a comprehensively tragic and hopeful collection about the heartbreaking process of growing up. It is steeped in grief for Netty herself. For the Netty before she learned the bad things of the world. It is full of sadness and still recognizes that everyone moves through this loss of innocence; everyone begins wishing their baby teeth meant something more to someone (“I guess I just wanted it to mean more to you / than it did.” (“2004”)) and ends up aware of the darker ideas surrounding keeping a child’s teeth (“I think I get it—what kind of / person / keeps a child’s teeth?” (“Daddy”)). Everyone makes mistakes, or gets taken advantage of, and finds a way to blame themselves, and everyone mourns and misses who they were before the pain. Ultimately, this poetry collection feels to me like an extensive, difficult, beautiful journey to find who Netty is not outside or minus her sadness and her self-grief, but who she is with it. It’s about finding love that doesn’t evoke gore and destruction.
Though it’s difficult to pick favorite poems in a collection that feels as if each poem is most valuable next to each other poem in the collection, I’d have to pick “Career Day,” “Adolescence,” “Anthropophagus,” “Apostrophe,” “Sticky,” “Butterbugs” “Coffee Stains,” and “Things That Don’t Mean Anything At All” (it should say something that I had to list THIS MANY favorite poems). Each made me take a breath before I kept reading. I’m absolutely in love with every one of them.
I love this dearly and I will never forget it.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews