My wisdom teeth are in a pink plastic container in the shape of a tooth much larger than a human tooth. The shape of the container is helpful because it makes it impossible to forget what is inside. I had my wisdom teeth taken out five years ago. I was 25. Many people have their wisdom teeth removed at a much younger age. It is less painful when you’re younger because the teeth have not started growing into the bone of your jaw. That’s what they say at least. I waited because I was hoping to keep them. I liked the idea of keeping my wisdom teeth. I was dumb and meek and thought eventually they would reveal my inner wisdom and cruelty. But eventually the pressure created a terrible pain. I tried opening my mouth more. I wanted to let the pain out like a bee that had gotten stuck in a house. It didn’t work. It never does. The doctor said they had to go. For months afterward I picked out shards of wisdom teeth that bubbled up from the depths of my gums. For some reason the doctor who removed my wisdom teeth gave me the extracted molars in the pink plastic container that is the shape of a tooth much larger than a human tooth. I figured I would throw the teeth away but I kept keeping them. I have kept them for four years and through four involuntary moves. Each time we move I think that I will do something interesting or merciful with them. I could display them ceremoniously or throw them like coins into a public pool of water or turn them into jewelry. But each time they go into a drawer in the bathroom of wherever we move. Each time we move my boyfriend sees me put them in a drawer and says the teeth are disgusting. The bottom of each tooth is tainted red. I know this but I don’t know if he knows this because I am not convinced he has ever even opened the container. I ask why they are disgusting. He says because they are teeth. I say you have a lot of teeth. He says that all of his teeth are in his mouth. My wisdom teeth are not in my mouth. This makes them macabre. He says if you had your appendix taken out would it be sitting on a shelf? He says teeth are violent. He says you don’t even have a great reason to keep them except you do not know what to do with them and you’ve kept them so long that if you just threw them away it would be very anticlimactic. (He likes to explain everything.) He says maybe if you had a better imagination you could think of something clever or meaningful. I say I like how fierce they look and that I think it’s good to know what fierceness we have inside ourselves. (This isn’t really the reason but I want to keep them.) I shake the pink container at him. It jangles like jellybeans. He says please do something with them. I worry that some day he will take them away without asking. He knows where they are and he has thrown away my things before. Some time ago I refused to get rid of some shoes I had worn for so long that each sole had a circular hole that had grown and grown like an opening iris shot in an old movie. I kept saying I would take them to be repaired. I am always putting things like that out of my mind. Who knows where thoughts go once they leave my mind. Really they are still there, somewhere, appearing and disappearing like a bobbing boat you watch way far out in the ocean. I am the kind of person who always forgets to pay my bills even when I have enough money because I push things out of my mind. One day I came home and the shoes were gone. We never spoke about it. (This was right after our second move.) I miss the shoes. My feet often hurt but they held my wide feet quite nicely. Sometimes I wonder if maybe I myself lost them. I am in fact often losing things. But I never ask because it is better to just let the whole memory of them sink and disappear. My feet hurt more often but I do not get them removed like my wisdom teeth. Sometimes I really am sure that he was the culprit. I am sure he threw my shoes away. I worry about my teeth. But I do not move them for fear of losing them. But then we move again and this time I lose the teeth. However I find my shoes. I ask my boyfriend where my teeth are. He says he put them in one of the shoes. He says they must have fallen out. I cannot figure out his intentions. (I am not even sure if he still has his wisdom teeth or intentions. I have never asked.) I have to retrace all my steps. It takes a long time and my feet hurt. I walk all the way out to the horizon of the ocean and I find a bobbing boat. Inside the boat is the plastic tooth-shaped container and inside the container are my teeth. I take out the teeth and throw them into the ocean and they sink. I throw the container into the ocean, but it does not sink.