gingivitIs, or, against the sedative nature of suburbia

"And then the lady wept!!" he cried from atop a shoebox/soapbox in the middle of the high school cafeteria, concluding a dramatic description of a teenage girl's self-loathing and depression. Jimmy Jones, a boy from a somewhere suburb, was preaching to his peers about his current crusade against the sedative nature of suburbia. "The ever-so pervasive epidemic of apathy and unhappiness knows no class boundaries, right? Right?!"

As the high school guidance counselor (and as a neurotic and maternal middle-aged woman with no children of your own to lose sleep over), Jimmy Jones made you nervous. He reminded you, with his theatricality and radical politics, of Sebastian Wright - a boy that you had known when you were young, who had sat across from you in your high school Shakespeare English class. Sebastian Wright - also political and theatrical - founded the school's peace club (Blood/Oil, he wrote on flyers, which you finally understood years later) and would often stand on his desk to read aloud from Shakespeare's texts (always being assigned the role of the Iago, the Mercutio).

In January of that school year, Sebastian did not show up for school one day. After a week-long absence, your teacher had announced that he had jumped off the golden gate bridge. You imagined it like flying. After that your teacher only assigned comedies, but it didn't matter. Life was decidedly tragic. You think: and then, Jimmy Jones, and then the lady wept.

Repetition helps. Literary devices in general help. All hope now rests on the written word. You think: defiance. You think: dignity. You think: gratitude. You are a grown woman but you still feel it, in your gut and in your toes, an amorphous blob of life gurgling misery and anxieties and coffee and beer. In bed that night you tuck aluminum foil in the Back pockets of your mouth and feel the burn above your cavities. Gingivitis, you this, is a beautiful word if you like the thought of inflammation.