In a heart-shaped box, a mother keeps her children’s teeth, collecting them like coins or snowglobes. Out of love, of course. It's love that has her picking at her children's teeth, digging them out of their mouths. It's love that has her pressing a tissue against their mouths to stop the bleeding. It's love that has her drugging them so they can't feel any pain. She looks at her children now. All...

In a heart-shaped box, a mother keeps her children’s teeth. Every time the naughty kids chose the wrong answer, she would take a tooth out from each of their small mouths as a means of discipline.

Every Saturday at the dusk of dawn, the mother would gather the children, all six of them, in the living room to play a game. The game had no rules, no guidelines, and no properly set conditions; to pla...

The mother kept in a heart shaped box, the teeth of her children .

She kept it for the tooth fairy to steal the teeth in exchange for for wish

It was also a guilt for giving a kids too many sweets

She wish that the kids would be able to speak and eat meat and drink meekly....

In a heart-shaped box, my mother kept her children’s teeth. It was the only thing my father let her keep after the divorce.

Whenever my brothers and I stayed at her apartment for the weekend, she would move the box from her bedroom to the mantle of the fireplace. She would refresh us on the many unorthodox methods we’d use to pull our loose teeth out. There would be the typical string on the door...

In the heart shape box a mother kept all her daughters teeth, in the cleanest condition. She collected them like one collecting rocks, storing them all in a special container.

Her daughter was asleep, and had been for months and years now. Peacefully laying in the hospital bed with the heart meter on the wall beeping with clear consistency. The mother visited her every day, hoping for some sign ...

In a heart-shaped box, a mother keeps her children's teeth-not as a reminder of their innocence, but as a haunting souvenir of what she had done. She could neither forget nor mourn her children. The teeth were tokens, stripped of meaning beyond the visceral memory of rage. She didn't keep them to remember; she kept them because she couldn't escape the truth. Every meal, every restless night-they w...

Little heart shaped pine wood box, blue velvet all lined and brass hinge and lock.

Her little nimble fingers pop open the pine wood box, her hands are small and quick and clever, as she places in a small loose tooth.

A little tear rolls down her face, and falls upon the velvet box, she hopes and hopes that soon one day.

Her children will wake to her with them, and all the teeth she’d taken fr...

I’ve found a box

In Mother’s drawer

Shaped as a heart ❤️

Footsteps came

And I ran right out

It was her secret

I had to know

I’d sneak

When she left our home

She went shopping

For more food

This was my chance

To find the secret

I went to her room

Opened the drawer

Saw the heart box

And opened it

Inside was lots of

Teeth? 🦷

Ew

Were these my teeth?

My baby teeth?!

EWWWW 👁️👄👁️...

In a heart shaped box, my mother keeps all her children’s teeth. All but mine.

All of her children’s pointed, ugly fangs rest in the boxes center, along with photographs that depict memories that I am not a part of.

Withered paper shows dates of my sisters and brothers beginning. All but mine.

I am the youngest of my family. I have no spot for my teeth or my day of beginning in my mother’s hear...

Wait just a moment

I know it’s here somewhere

Rattle and clatter like box of loose teeth

Baby curls saved with satin ribbon

Tempura paint handprints

Fire engine red and orange still bright

glitter glue popsicle stick frame

Around a long lost smile

Give me a moment

I know it must be here

Let me lift the lid

Off this tornworn heart

Keepsakes tumble out

Hair and prints and baby teeth

Forensic art...