Teeth

The city is colder when I’m alone. But I trudge forward regardless, my teeth chattering like the patter of mice scurrying through the walls of tall skyscrapers that disappear in the fog, long as my shadow in the afternoon. Crowded and imposing, the buildings surround me, unable to block winter’s unrelenting breath. I clench my jaw until my fragile teeth shatter, crumbling into powder and pouring from my cavernous mouth onto the snow-steeped street.

Wayward winds race past my chafed nose and frosted cheeks, dodging the ridges in the snow-capped mountains of my chapped lips and giggling in playful delight like puck fairies. They tickle my exposed gums where drool drizzles in the hollow spaces my teeth used to occupy, freezing it like stalactites in neat, white rows. These frigid dentures seem to serve the same utility as any other set of teeth, rattling again in percussive harmony as I amble ahead, similar but changed, yet still alone in the cold, cold city.