squeezing time.

A few years ago while traveling around Mexico, I woke up in the jungle in Palenque with a cheek the size of a grapefruit. The pain went to the center of my brain.

“That doesn’t look good. You should go to town.”

There was no denying it, I needed to go to town, a little town comprised, mainly, of businesses dependent on the tourism to the massive Mayan ruins site nearby. I had to go to town and find a dentist, which meant leaving my campsite – a thatch-roofed palapa with a couple of hammocks hanging underneath. It had been pouring down rain since I arrived the day before. I was damp. Everything was damp. I was miserable already, mosquito-bitten and inexperienced at the art and joy of sleeping outdoors in “elements”. And I also had a toothache.

As good here as anywhere, I guess, when it comes to the act of removing a tooth. There are roadside stands for it all over the world. Dentistry is a popular field in Mexico, though, apparently. I got off the bus and there were at least six dentists from the vantage point of the street corner. I had to come up with some sort of criteria.

I’m pretty sure her name was Maria – it was her name, and that’s what I based my decision on.

Maria had the tooth out in seconds and sent me on my way with a droopy, numb cheek and some cotton. When I got back to my campsite, a friendly Canadian who’d been carrying around a single Vocodin for a desperate emergency decided I was it and handed it to me. But within hours it was as if a demon had been excised. The pain was gone so I, too, stored the prize pill away for a desperate emergency (once again, it would apply to a desperate emergency of my own, but that’s another story – to veer off into a tangent about running away from a beautiful-hippie-turned-crack-smoker boyfriend would take too long for all of us right now – just remind me sometime).

Anyway, it was a fully-grown wisdom tooth that came out – something I nor anyone else would ever miss, but still, I felt like I’d somehow crossed a line.

Eventually when I returned to Mexico on my way back up to the states, I smacked my face hard against the bus seat in front of me. Something happened but the pain subsided after a few weeks and I let it go.

I shouldn’t have, because eventually two pieces of tooth resided underneath that gum line, and eventually, they started to fight.

A year ago I moved to a remote place a few hours north of the Mexican border. I was told that it was too dangerous to go there for dental work, but here it was again, a new demon – so frightful and devastating I’d hallucinated. I had two options – cross the border or pull the damn thing myself.

I’d have done it if it were a molar – but it was not, and what I couldn’t do is make myself something temporary and mildly realistic that I could wear until my gums healed and cosmetic work took place.  So as it stands, I have this plastic that pops up into the roof of my mooth and there’s a fake front tooth on the front of it. It’s rather ridiculous, and I’m floored about it, but as much of an ego battle as it is, I’m exploring it. There is, of course, a story in it I need to tell while I have the chance to taste it fully. And here it is.

I very often take my temporary tooth out when I’m alone (and right now, I am alone – my partner is away for another ten days).  Now, I feel the strange new experience of my lips as they encounter the abrupt edges of the teeth surrounding this new space.

Just a month ago I was feeling the opposite sensation – that tooth began to rearrange itself when I had the wisdom tooth pulled and made some space. By the time I had it removed, my lip had been playing around with the idea of a tooth that overlapped it for practically two years. So had my tongue.

Now, my tongue encounters this unbelievably soft texture – only those of you who’ve placed your tongue on such soft a texture will understand what I can’t really describe. What my tongue now feels is the inside of my upper lip through that space. My lip is totally relaxed, without tension, soft as… as… It is quite a sensual, erotic experience and so I sit here in a private, private moment, running my tongue back and forth across the broken line of my front teeth, feeling that soft, velvety lip.

Next weekend I return to the chair across the border for the extraction of the last two wisdom teeth and the cosmetic replacement of this front one.  Apparently someone was kidnapped out of that dentist’s office a week before I went but to be quite honest, I don’t feel afraid.

See, I’m not worth anything, and it would take a while before anyone realized I was gone anyway – this is obvious enough. I contribute very little to the system., but this is all fine with me really. It’s all part of affordable dental health care. I’m glad I have the access to it while there are still plenty of teeth in my mouth.