The ghost of my anger lives in my teeth. She used to live behind my eyes, inside my ribs, the back of my throat—but that was back when she was alive, and now that she is a ghost, my teeth are all she gets. The ghost of my anger bites my tongue, fills my mouth with cold iron. She chews on the inside of my cheek until there's a hole in this skin. Her enamel erodes in sugar and starches; when the dentist cleans out a cavity, he cracks open maple-sweet syrup buried under the bone and observes, surprised, that it's still warm. The ghost of my anger does not want to be a ghost. Of course she doesn't. Teeth can't talk and injury's the only mode of communication left. Yesterday, the ghost of my anger cried because she is dead. The grief bloomed like rust on my gums. The last time she cried, she had been dying. I had been bleeding, from my eyes where I ripped them out and my wrists where I peeled them open and the back of my throat where I dug in the knife, and my anger—dying—had been crying. Today, the ghost of my anger is screaming. My eardrums have ruptured; something is beginning to trickle out. Grief or blood? Is there a difference? You didn't need to kill me, the ghost of my anger is screaming. She is wrong.
