DIVINATIONS 
MAGAZINE

Your teeth are curiously flat.

Canines virtually indistinguishable from the rest; parallel lines cutting a slash in your mouth, neat and even tiled incisors to molars.

Plush lips, though slightly uneven. A perfect cupid's bow. Faint gloss and shimmer contained within the boundaries that you laid out.

When I saw you for the first time, perched on that stool across the crowded cafe, an iced latte in your hand as you threw your head back and laughed, I paused.

Brilliant white teeth. The type of white that comes from treatments at the dentist, any hints of yellow or brown eradicated by whirring tools and a masked man.

But the shape - seemed off.

The chattering faces surrounding you had bland and standard canines. Soft point, gentle divots created in the rolling terrain of their mouth. Blunted from years of evolutionary disuse. Their scars were on display in other ways: the peeling flesh of their lower lip, the violet under their eyes, the trembling of a limb when they thought nobody could see.

But everything about you was perfect, except your teeth. I wondered why.

Tonight, I watch you toss and turn. The sound of tearing metal fills the air.

Your jaw is clenched, so tight I can see the muscle pulse and thrum. It’s thick and ropy, years and years of overuse bunched and coiled in your face. A hunk of torn and chewed plastic is discarded in your bed; your weak attempt at protecting your teeth, the mouthguard you spit out in your sleep every night. As if your unconscious mind rejects your attempts at self-preservation.

It’s okay. That’s why I’m here.

When you chew, you switch which side of your jaw you use throughout your meal. Diligent. Careful. I wonder how often your temporomandibular health crosses your mind. Your normal chewing places sixty-eight pounds per square inch of pressure on your teeth.

Grinding your teeth at night, however, places up to nine hundred. Now, I know why your teeth are flat. The pressures of work and life and being your perfect self manifest at night, a direct translation.

I need to save you from yourself.

The last thing I want to do is wake you up; you need your rest. You have a long day tomorrow; though now, I know that all of your days are long.

It’s easy to make you gasp in your sleep. It only takes a moment - a quick pinch of my fingers over your nostrils, the disruption in your airflow enough to make your mouth drop open.

I slide my fingers in. They nestle in your wet mouth, their new home between the crushing weight of your jaw. I close my eyes in relief; I await your benediction.

You bite down.

There’s a saying, that it’s as easy to bite off a finger as it is to bite a carrot. It’s false; we prove it together, here, now.

Your teeth pierce my skin, break the barrier between us. I groan. The exquisite crush of your flat, flat teeth shoots sparks through my veins. Blood seeps out of me to fuel you. This is my purpose. I’m here. Your teeth no longer touch, but your jaw continues to work. Your brow furrows, your subconscious questioning the sudden lack of self-destruction.

I stand over you as you nestle deeper into your sheets, your mind comforted by my sacrifice. My blood smears on your lips, stains those perfectly flat teeth.

I smile.