{"id":1197,"date":"2023-02-24T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-24T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/?p=1197"},"modified":"2023-02-17T09:18:00","modified_gmt":"2023-02-17T14:18:00","slug":"bruxism-by-aileen-odowd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/?p=1197","title":{"rendered":"Bruxism by Aileen O&#8217;Dowd"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When I wake up, my central incisor is a rhinoceros. My lip gets hooked on its horn. My husband says, <em>what now?<\/em> My dentist says, <em>rhinoceros?<\/em> <em>My tooth is a<\/em> <em>mammal<\/em>, I say. My fork is redundant<em>.<\/em> My canine is a canary. It sings, <em>how do you do?<\/em> A feather tickles my nose and I sneeze. <em>Bless you<\/em>, my dentist says. <em>Thank you<\/em>, my molar says\u2014it is now a giraffe. My dentist blows an X-ray up on the screen: <em>This is a tooth menagerie!<\/em> He laughs. I am trying to contain the canary. <em>No menagerie,<\/em> I say, without moving my lips. <em>This is a zoo<\/em>. A camel wiggles its hump. <em>Your teeth<\/em>, the dentist says, <em>are out of line.<\/em> He puts on his glasses and points with his flashlight. The rhino runs over my tongue. <em>Bruxism,<\/em> the dentist says.<em> What-now?<\/em> my husband says. <em>Do something!<\/em> I say. <em>I\u2019m sorry<\/em>, says the dentist. His eyes dart around like mice. <em>You\u2019ve gone too far. You chiseled your teeth into non-teeth. <\/em>He crumples my blue paper bib.<em> My department, <\/em>the dentist says, <em>is teeth<\/em>. He points to the door. A dental hygienist appears. She holds my bill in her mouth. A giant mouth of veneers. <em>Now that is a beautiful smile,<\/em> says my husband. And it is. Her teeth, so straight and obedient and white. Causing no trouble at all. So shiny and dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">________<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Aileen O\u2019Dowd lives in Toronto. Her writing has appeared in <\/em>X-R-A-Y<em>, <\/em>Peach Mag<em>, <\/em>Maudlin House<em>, <\/em>Rejection Letters<em>, and elsewhere.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>When I wake up, my central incisor is a rhinoceros. My lip gets hooked on its horn. My husband says, what now? My dentist says, <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/?p=1197\" title=\"Bruxism by Aileen O&#8217;Dowd\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1197"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1209,"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197\/revisions\/1209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}