[Roger Slater]

I love the first two stanzas. The next two stanzas, however, strike me as vague and unnecessary. What is a "bad day"? It can mean so many things, from "my best friend died" to "I didn't manage to get much writing done." Perhaps in a book, as part of a sequence, I might have a better idea. But even still, it's quite repetitive: orphan, stray, castaway, unanchored. Pick a metaphor. Or better yet, show don't tell (the way you do in the rest of the poem). We go from the appealing specificity of the toothache, with its gentle hint of a metaphorical meaning, to belabored yet vague whining in S3. All of which is unnecessary, since the tone of S1 and S2, along with the portrait of someone who views a toothache as a constant and loyal companion, tell us all we need to know. And then S4 takes fairly long time to tell us that the speaker lost his appetite, which I don't regard as necessary (and which is perhaps an overfamiliar symptom of depression and loneliness, not nearly as original as enjoying the companionship of a mild toothache).