My dentist asks me if I’m stressed and explains how anxiety can show up on the teeth. I don’t just grind, no, I push my teeth against each other, I push my teeth right out of my mouth. So I get a mouth guard. First over the counter, one I have to boil to mold to my mouth, then a prescription one my insurance doesn’t cover.
Still my front teeth loosen, rubber-band gums stretched. I might need a gum graft surgery; this is getting serious. Insurance doesn’t cover that either and a Google of prices tells me neither can I. The dentist doesn’t know if I’ll be able to keep my teeth without, and so he suggests implants, but those cost even more.
Later, I don’t floss or brush before bed, and I leave the useless guards asleep on my bedside table. I tap my teeth together. Maybe death would be better than missing front teeth.
Sleep doesn’t come and a tickle in my mouth grows intolerable. So I scratch the top of my palate with my tongue. Is it a canker sore? A hive? It almost feels like little scurrying feet, insects crawling up my gullet.
I rush to the bathroom sink and run water in my mouth, then swish all around, all over my tongue, inside my cheeks. When it feels like enough, I spit and little spots swirl down the drain. One lifts up with my fingertip, and I hold it close to my face.
It waves its little limbs and twitches its droopy wings. It’s not a bug, but it is alive. At the end of humanoid arms are a hammer and saw, respectively. With a voice high and chirpy, it says, “We were almost done!” So I turn on the faucet and wash it away.
One last rinse sends one of my teeth to the porcelain, where it bounces around like a plastic bead.
Originally published @ PULP LIT MAG, Issue 1, page 127
Amber Baird, Author 
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