Where I got my tooth.

There is a rotting carcass lying about ten feet off from a long and quiet highway in the grassy fields of Idaho. Between the sage brush, the trembling fence and the pavement her body sleeps. Her body is nearly gone, the bits of fur and muscle matter that remain are mud-slicked and holey from insects. Her eyes have turned into a thick, buttery white goo receding into what is left of her cavernous eye sockets. If she still had a tongue, it would be hanging out between her broken molars. Her ribcage is open to the sky, but there is no heart inside. Only spiderwebs and dust fill that space. They blow between the bones. Her teeth lie near her broken body. I took one of them. I wanted to remember her. I wanted to remember that life is constantly feeding and destroying, collapsing only to nourish itself again. This constant cycle. Life feeds on other life. I need this reminder. To know that a flower grows out of a carcass. To know that a coyote feeds off her, as the motorist that killed her passes along unfazed. To know I am not going to heaven and that is a good thing. To know that life is so much more than Heaven or Hell, yes or no, follow rules, break rules, lines, codes, machinery and taxes. To know the fields she walked through were open to the sky, blown through with pine tree wind and bird calls, the moss in the grass was damp and the sun was high. To know she lived in a world without a few of not landing a good career and bringing home the bacon, or proving herself to her peers.