Bleeding Gums

Every junkie has their ritual.

Mine is the following: flipping open my roll of dental floss. Unwinding a piece as long as my lower arm. Carefully wrapping it five times around my index fingers - first my left, then the right. Then I grab the floss between middle finger and thumb, pulling it taut.

An intake of breath. A short moment of reflection in front of the bathroom mirror, avoiding my own gaze. A short prayer to myself: only the necessities today. Nothing more.

Then I set to work. 

At first, I keep to my word. Working the teeth, being gentle on the gums. Doing my round. Trying to keep myself from pushing further.

But there is a lure, calling me to go deeper. To grind the floss into my gums, seeking blood and with it sharp, clear pain. It promises - what? I cannot say. But it clears my mind, scrubbing it from the miasma housed between my ears. The wet, heavy detritus of my day, dissolving in its sweet simplicity. The pain within finally made manifest without. 

I try to rationalize it, thinking of my dentists orders. Trying to find good reasons why I would go so far. All nothing but allowing thoughts, trying to hide the real reason: that I wish for punishment for my misdeeds, my runaway thoughts, my being. 

In a sense, it is an improvement to earlier years. I have no more need for self-medication, and I try not to rise my hand against myself in anger any more. Sometimes, I am not successful with that. But it has gotten better. Nonetheless.

Every junkie makes deals with themselves. 

Mine is the following: I wish not to destroy myself any more, but I need at least something. I wish not that my environment notices my self-punishing behaviour, so I hide it behind acts of self-care.

Therefore, I microdose the pain. Flossing makes it controllable and - due to the nature of the application - invisible. 

But even in the act itself, I realize the error of my ways. The dull cutting of my gums doesn't take away the fact that I still feel like I do not belong, the utter sense of wrongness at the bottom of my soul. The pain is nothing but a blanket thrown over the fact that I still cannot accept myself. A futile effort trying to fix something, and if it proves not to be fixable, then at least a punishment for that very fact. 

Blood is finally found. In extreme cases, the floss snaps, snapping me out of my search for more. Taking heavy breaths, I feel the work done. My mouth is a firework, my head silenced. 

Then, the rest of my evening routine commences. As if nothing happened.

When I wake up in the middle of the night, my jaw feels raw and sensitive. In a perverse sense, I carry this as a mark of pride. Look here, I say to myself, I am able to endure. Punishment has been dealt, and nobody but me knows about it. An acceptable mistake, keeping me from even greater mistakes. 

Nothing but a junkies deal, and a junkies ritual.