004
My teeth are loose against my tongue. I push at them and they slide out of my gums, one clump at a time. I can hear them grinding against each other inside my mouth, feel them against my cheeks— hard, smooth and disgusting. I don't taste blood. They crowd the insides of my mouth, pushing against my lips. I spit them out, letting them spill into my cupped hand. They're pristine little things, covered in saliva. I run my tongue over my gums and feel up the empty crevices my teeth left. I shiver.
This is my critical point. This dream is the omen of the ends of things— the harbinger of change. It's the loud whisper in my mind that tells me it's time. My teeth fell out and I must heed the call.
I wake up entranced. I move through life numb. The dream is a persistent beat of a psychotic track, in perpetual crescendo. It's so loud inside my head. I can't hear anything else.
Teeth must fall out, I chant to myself. It's my mantra, my poem, my prayer. Teeth must fall out, I scream at myself. And yet not a single word is uttered by my lips.
The void the words create engulfs me and I become but a string of thoughts floating in an empty space. I'm being reduced to nothing, becoming undone, my world already long gone.
I don't need to be brave to do what I must do, not anymore. A thing that no longer exists can't be scared, can't feel fear, can't summon bravery nor do brave things. And I do not exist, not at that very moment— only my teeth exist. And they look down upon me, mountains of millions upon millions.
My teeth fell out and I must fall.
I pull the trigger, swallow the pills, cut deep into my carotid, kick the chair. My legs leave the ledge of the highest building. I take a leap into an abyss, and I'm greeted with the bright flash of a world born anew.
Solace is not what I find, but what I find instead is myself. The hysteric beating finally dies out. The whispers stop. The ringing in my ears fades, giving way to the sounds of a familiar world, slightly changed.
The build-up was torment and the relief is numbing. My tongue push against my teeth and they're solid, fixed in their place. I'm free once more— free of the claws of birds of prey that awaited my fresh corpse. Free of the guilt and shame put upon me by false saints. Free of a would-be life-long tragedy, by the skin of my teeth.
Teeth must fall out, and I'll pry them out one by one myself if I have to.