Thy festering gums as catalyst

The kind of thing you want to say with a dental drill leaned into your darkest cavities. You are now paying for your excesses, the dentist reminds you as he wipes his brow on his sky blue scrubs sleeve, checks the gold watch set in his bush of arm hair. The kind of thing you want to open wider to shriek, a tribal howl as you gag on your own tongue and he scrapes bits of meat from your molars. "Spit," he says. But you find yourself speechless without pain to compel confession.