...who am i trying to channel?

My mouth wreaks of novocaine. The numbing solution the dentist gave me earlier was a deep shade of pink; it reminded me of a sliver of a large intestine being served to my teeth on a cotton quilted platter. I wanted to gag. The man behind the mask shook his head at me. "Your cavity is pretty deep," he said. For whatever reason, I was offended. How dare he tell me how deep my cavity was, and surely he had seen worse in his illustrious career as a family dentist. Almost immediately I despised him. And I hated that sterile white room in which I was stuck and that dowdy hygienist humming off key to that depressing jingle of a discount furniture retailer. And I loathed the fact that his fat latexed fingers were poking and prodding at my cavity and I wanted to scream but I couldn't. It was my dark pit and my deep decay, and it was something that I had done well enough to conceal for some time now. I remember having a strange and primal instinct to bite his fingers, to pierce through the plastic and into his skin to make him stop, but I couldn't; I simply couldn't feel anything.

It was the strangest sensation when I left. Half of my face had no feeling, and the other was perfectly emotive. I looked in the mirror and was shocked to see how puffy and jowly the left side of my face was; it reminded me of a partially deflated balloon. Prelude to adulthood, perhaps? I tried to force a smile onto my face, but only one corner of my mouth agreed to curl, and my "smile" looked like a "j" knocked helplessly on its side. I then imagined myself as a recovering stroke victim. Would my husband still love me with my partially frozen face? Would my family still recognize me? I thought of all of the people I knew who had suffered from strokes, and how generally after the fact, their outward expressions tend to mirror their frozen facial features. I suppose it is easier to give up than it is to try; and besides, having half a feeling is worse than having no feeling at all. All I know is that I certainly didn't feel like the girl who, while resting quietly on her bed, would later be told how "pretty she looked today" by a boy sitting rather close to her chest.

(This stupid little girl was immediately self conscious because of her makeup, her clothing, and even her own heartbeat. She felt like they distracted from who she really was, and painted a portrait of someone who she was not. Unable to speak, this little girl tossed a pillow into his face and rolled to her side. And then he fucked her, and she didn't feel pretty at all. She didn't feel anything. All she could see were gloved fingers, sanitary solution, and large intestines as he grunted. She looked to the ceiling for relief, but the pocks rearranged themselves to form molars and bicuspids and incisors. Ninety seconds passed, and he pathetically whispered "Oh, shit. Wow." She was hoping the novocaine would find its way into his mouth, sparing both of them from saying things they did not mean. "That was, great," he panted. She was covered in pools of his sweat. They reminded her of oil slicks that race cars leave after a drag race. His breath smelled like an ash tray. She smiled faintly, like a pale crescent moon does before it dissolves quietly into the sky, and kissed him. Thank god she couldn't feel that either.)

Later that day I went to my grandmother's. As I was waiting for her to answer the door, I couldn't help but notice how similar my hands were to her old oak tree: dry and spindly and made stiffer and weaker by time. She greeted me with open arms, "Well, don't you look pretty," she said. I wanted to cry.

She ushered me inside. We discussed Christmas, presents, and her meals until she finally showed me what she wanted to discuss. She pulled out a flyer from some womens magazine. It was some concoction that was supposed to boost your immune system, tastes like berries! Keeps you healthy! I eyed it listlessly as it fell slowly atop her crossword puzzles and prescriptions. I've grown annoyed of this. My mother pushes iron supplements and protein on me. She thinks I am either anemic, have mono, or am dieting. She notices that I have "pain pills" in my purse, but gets sore with me when I sigh and say that it is just aspirin. She doesn't believe me. They are a new variety, I say. My mother shakes her head and I recall the time she burst into my room when I was in high school, demanding that I give her my drugs. I wasn't on any at the time; she scoured and scoured and didn't find any and then finally apologized, and asked if I was just sad. I hate the word "sad." She doesn't like that I wear the color black and am tired often. She hates the fact that I don't indulge in mayonnaise based spreads, and don't eat peanut butter cookies. She asks me if I am sad, if I am trying to lose weight, if I want to order a pizza, and if I need to see a doctor. To all of these I say "No." I always want to add "...but what kind?" but I don't. My mother also enjoys talking to the television about charming men in cinema while licking artichoke dip off of her fingertips. Occasionally she gets some stuck between her teeth but she doesn't notice. I don't say anything, either. I nod my head to this, and smile blankly back at the cold screen. A stupid little girl is about to get fucked by a hawk nosed man in a suit.

I then look at my own fingertips, and am surprised to see a lone, longish nail. I almost never see the whites of them; I always bite them off before they have the chance to grow. But I do regularly see the color white on them. I always thought those little white specks on the pinks of my nails were just bruises (when I was younger I likened them to my very own stars), but as my mother quickly pointed out, it is a sign of nutrient deficiency. The nail reminds me of a white marble tombstone in a crooked cemetery. Instinctively, I bite the nail off and let it linger a bit on the tip of my tongue as some sort of ivory prize, but I still can't feel it. Or maybe I can, I don't know. Besides, that prize has no weight, no texture, no color, no taste, no odor, and no sound. I wonder to myself, sometimes, is there a difference between paralysis and weightlessness? And then I think about those sad stroke victims. I get frustrated with myself, because maybe they aren't really sad, maybe they don't even realize they're numb at all, maybe they never really loved their spouses and family before the stroke, and maybe they were bloodless all along. I hope I am not smiling while I think of these things, but how will I ever know?

I sometimes worry that I am beginning to grow accustomed to this lack of taste in my mouth.