Split Tooth

by Tanya Tagaq

  Something is lurking

  Something sideways

  Something hollow

  Something pasty and shallow

  Something jittery

  Something slow

  Sucking on mud and

  Filled with woe

  Something is stirring

  Something full

  Something thick and cold

  Something imperceptible

  Something unseen

  Something war-driven

  Something obscene

  It makes me want to hide in blankets and make bad choices

  It makes me want to destroy what’s in front of me

  It can be freed only with tears

  1978

  It’s early morning. The Frosted Flakes have grown soggy. I’m stuck staring at one of the half-submerged flakes, half crispy, half mushy. Tap tap tap the spoon against the ceramic bowl; it seems to help shake off the sleep that refuses to lift from the top of my head. It feels fuzzy and numb. Boredom hangover. It’s pitch-black outside. Dead winter. We have not seen the sun in months. Stars stare at me through the window. Wind screams urgently, shaking the house. Wind sings but carries an axe instead of a note.

  A dog howls. Five more follow suit. I put on my kamiit and kick the door open because it has frozen shut. School has not been cancelled: it’s not cold enough outside. It has to be at least minus fifty with the wind chill to merit a day off. The roads are frozen solid; they will stay that way until May or June.

  The permafrost is living under everything, slowing time and preserving what would normally rot. Kamiit help feet deftly navigate the slip of the ice, the crunch of the snow, and the depths of the drifts. The sealskin is warm, but I have lost the blood my feet carry. The Cold has scared the blood out of my toes. Our feet have built-in memory of which tendons to curl to prevent falling on all different kinds of ice. The Snow would sometimes slice the surface of the ice in half with a drift, and try to trick us into falling. The Snow could crunch underfoot or chase you loosely. The Snow could hold your whole body weight or decide to deceive you and plunge you into the down underneath.

  Snow is fickle. Snow picks itself up and goes wherever Wind tells it to. One element controls the other in a cyclical oblivion. Weather is just the earth’s breaths. Wind is the cold bearer and the death bringer. Streetlights hold halos of swirling snow; rainbows appear if you look at the streetlights and squint. My footsteps the only sound of any human being, I continue the hollow morning walk to school.

  Deep breath

  Ice in lung

  Frog in throat

  Lava in belly

  Grade eight. Ugh. I have another giant cold sore on my chin. It’s ten miles wide and oozing. I do my best to disguise it with my scarf and steel my ego for the taunting that I am about to receive. “Soresees” is the name that gets appointed to the person suffering from a cold sore for the entirety of its duration. This name can also be applied to chickenpox, eczema, bed bug bites, zits, or any other skin ailment. The series of nicknames allotted to the students in our school were never kind, but often so amusing that we were happy to carry the burden when it was our turn. I silently thank the universe that I will never be branded “Nibble-a-cock” like my friend Casper Noviligak because she gave a blowjob to that hotdog on a dare last Thursday.

  It took me fifteen minutes to pull these jeans on this morning. They are so tight that it hurts to breathe. Sometimes I have to use a coat hanger to get the zipper up. The tighter the jeans the better, and neon is in; neon leg warmers, neon tights, neon shirts, neon banana clips. We pile our hair as high as it will go, even though the wind destroys our hairdos to the point that every time we come in from outside, the girls’ bathroom is a haze of Final Net. We sport Chip and Pepper heat-sensitive colour-changing muscle shirts (leaving us hiding our fluorescent-orange armpits after gym), and pair them with acid-washed jeans and light blue eyeshadow. AC/DC. Dirty deeds and they’re done dirt cheap.

  The frosted-pink lip gloss clashed with my cold sore so I didn’t wear it today. My lips are cracked and chapped and my hair is flying with static electricity and keeps getting into my cold sore. Winter is dry. Like zero humidity. The cold holds moisture hostage. The boys scuff their socks on the carpet and shock the girls with pointed fingers and malicious glee. I hate it.

  I want to be the size of an ant, or just disappear. This year everyone got boobs except me. Every morning brings the measuring tape to the mirror in the hopes of the miracle of being suddenly blessed with tits, forever ending the reign of my nickname: Golf Balls. In lieu of breasts, I arrange sheets of toilet paper to make a home nest in my brassiere. The indignities we suffer as children will only grow larger as we get older, so we are told. That seems impossible.

  I get good grades in school without putting in much effort. I fail tests on purpose to avoid drawing too much ire from the popular girls, who seemed to think that accomplishing anything scholastically made you vain. School is scary and awkward; I guess it’s supposed to be. Sitting still for that long is impossible. My ass is numb. Who made this system? It feels like a slow torture watching the second hand tick by, watching the flakes of dandruff fly around the teacher’s head when he stands in the light. How can someone be almost bald and still have dandruff? Getting old is so gross. Watching people slowly rot is unnerving. I listen to the children breathing and sighing. We steal glances at each other. Listening to pencils scratching, we yearn for movement. Listening to the wind howl in screaming freedom, we all feel muted.

  Math class. The cute boy peeks up and smiles at me over his math book while holding hands under the table with the pretty girl. I’m aware that he is manipulating me but I still die a little inside. His black hair is in a brush cut and he smells a little mouldy, like his mom took too long to get the clothes into the dryer. He makes up for it with a searing confidence and sharp wit. Brightness. It shocks me every time he looks at me. He has already seen too much in life and his natural propensity for cruelty coupled with the hormones coursing through his body has him playing girls against each other like bristling sled dogs. He still gets to taste them all. I’ve always hated this social display of jealousy, girls scratching each other’s eyes out for boys. If he leaves me alone I can maintain my dignity, but I feel the pull of him in a place that is foreign to me. It is my first real crush. Our teacher is discussing physics.

  I think about the equal and opposite reaction to the look the boy just gave me and blush furiously. His girlfriend notices. Shit! I’m in for it after school. Doors open and close, the books in the library call me with their musty elder smell. The clocks rotate. I get my head slammed into my locker at recess, and the school day is over. Thank fuck.

  I only work from the waist up

  Psychological epidural

  Numb

  I was entered too young

  We were entered too young

  Cast in a pit of tar

  The more I struggle the deeper I sink

  Cold can preserve you Warmth can draw you down

  A glance from my daughter Her soft hair tangled and her

  giggles echo My blood and brains blasted against the

  bathroom wall A text from my mother “I love you”

  My body hanging from the stairwell

  An accolade, a sweet message,

  Stay away from the kitchen knives today

  My lover places his hand on the nape of my neck as we kiss

  I’m drowned in the bathtub I pity everyone who loves me

  because they deserve better A thousand jokes A million lies

  as everyone observes someone who walks and talks with leg

  and mouth This is the gift rape gives It is not violence against

  women It is violence done by men I hang my head And

  I stand up tall In the hope we all can heal And I drown

  My head full of tar

  Butane is my drug of choice these days. It’s great to get an actual high instead of the pretend one that we get from rollin
g up oregano and pretending it’s weed. One time we sold a piece of caribou dung to some tourist’s kid, telling him it was hashish. When asked if he got high, he replied that it was “really good shit!” We still laugh at that. Butane is clean. I like to steal it from the Co-op store and press the nozzle into my front teeth to release the gas, and inhale it deeply. The stars grow sharper and the colours get brighter. Sound elongates. Everything pixelates, blurs and sharpens simultaneously. Echo becomes my world and the numbness turns into flashes of light while the ground turns into rolling waves. I am a boat. I am a lightning bolt. I belong here in this world where nothing exists. After coming down I will have to hide from my mother for a few hours because she will see the high in my eyes. Her eyes have always known mine. She made them, after all.

  * * *

  —

  Country music and loud voices yank me out of sleep. The bedroom door opens a crack. Smoke billows in and the music is louder for an instant while the door is opened, then it softens again once the door is closed. Weight on the bed. I feign sleep and go to the faceless place.

  Air becomes thin

  flesh could be moved like warm butter

  and chewed and swallowed without hurting anyone

  where my own insides

  can be pulled through my fingers.

  Death is uncorrupted.

  When you’re filthy, you long to be clean.

  Where the lights go dim

  and reality blurs

  and thoughts turn red,

  this heartbeat will stop

  pumping what others call hopes and dreams

  through a cardiovascular nightmare.

  Never-ending chambers,

  each one darker than the last,

  hide everything that is true.

  The walls are dancing.

  We all have to play the game

  and pretend.

  I crave rock underfoot

  I crave

  I crave clear vision

  I crave to be

  anything but me.

  I am thrashing,

  gasping for air.

  I can’t see

  Through fog.

  I can’t feel anything anymore.

  Other than the echo in my conscience

  that this will pass

  One must trust

  in a world that has been perfect

  in its distribution of chaos.

  I am awakened from a deep slumber by the creaking of a hinge. The door slides open. A column of light enters the dark room. The music is louder for a moment, a country song. I can hear a swell of laughter and boisterous merriment in Inuktitut. The smell of cigarette smoke and booze follows the sound. An unnamed man enters, a shape, a shadow.

  I am sharing a room with an older girl. She came in a while before; she snores softly on the bed beside mine. I felt relief when she came to bed, I didn’t like being alone in here. Her teenaged years have not passed her yet. The man creeps in and sits on her bed. He exhales too sharply when he sits, an indicator that he has had too much to drink. The smell of liquor is strong. His breath heavy and thick, he gently shakes her and asks if she is awake. No answer. I hear shuffling, snapping of elastic, and peeling off of fabric. I chance a peek: a sliver of sight through an otherwise tightly closed eye. He has taken her pants off; her pubis is being pinched between thick fingers. She makes a small sound. He climbs on top of her and I can see him manoeuvring around. She starts to wake up. I feel a strange sensation in my belly, like I am going down a roller coaster. I hear her murmur, “The little one is on the other bed.” He says, “She’s just a kid, she’s asleep,” and continues his endeavour.

  It was over soon, squeaking springs and mewling sounds. The feeling in my belly went away and was replaced with disgust. I wasn’t brave enough to look again. I just pretended it wasn’t happening.

  Innuinaktun class. I hate this class. The teacher’s dry, brown, papery hands repulse me. His nails have weird white lines underneath them. He is too thin and hunches as if he is about to be kicked. He moves like a nervous rat. He wears yellow-tinted aviator glasses. He smells of victimhood and insecurity. Shaking and desperate, his exhalations sharp and pained as he glances at us. The sides of his mouth are marked with white foam.

  His mouth is hungry. His mouth makes sounds that mean Innuinaktun lessons but his eyes are eating us alive. I once saw a picture of him when he was young, being sent off to residential school, dressed in caribou-skin clothing and smiling. He was actually smiling. He didn’t have a shroud yet. He is one of those people I can feel. He is what I have already known, and then he does as I have already seen.

  The nuance in his hand movements shows us secrets, deep ones that travel underneath the surface of our consciousness. I can tell he was abused by his posture. He usually hunches but becomes taller and throws back his shoulders around subordinates, around victims. He is small. He is defeated. He disgusts me.

  I feel deficient in this class. My mother never speaks to me in Inuktitut anymore. Residential schools have beaten the Inuktitut out of this town in the name of progress, in the name of decency. Everyone wanted to move forward. Move forward with God, with money, with white skin and without the shaman’s way. It made me wonder what I was not being taught. It made me wonder why the teachings I was receiving felt like sandpaper against my skin. It made me sad to have Inuktitut slip away. It lives under my subconscious just like the secrets of the teacher do.

  So much has slipped away these days. The students snicker and gauge each other’s interest in the activities given. We cut and paste words from our ancestry onto our paper-doll versions of ourselves and everyone feels a little bit empty.

  Shaking while waking. I have gut-wrenching nightmares. They say it’s a symptom of a guilty conscience. It’s not our fault. We make it our fault. We like to make it huge but Guilt belongs in your back pocket. Guilt and Shame are the ultimate godly gifts. The dreams seem to bubble up from the centre of the earth, consuming my soul and preying on my being. Sometimes the devil comes to impale me, slice me sideways and quarter my loins. These dreams are horrid, but the ones where people get tortured are worse because I can never help them. I’m always being consumed while in the vulnerable state of unconsciousness; a huge weight that is the whole universe comes to rest upon me, to smother me in ineptitude. Making me slow and blind. Impotent. Powerless. Voiceless. Cowardly.

  Dreams will follow you into the day to force action, to change what caused the anxiety. We never like to listen to ourselves, even when we know we have to. We plod on ignoring what we must be, what we are meant to be. We are taught to fear our instincts. We must hunt down and fall in love with the Fear, therefore defeating our self-doubt every day. This is followed by joy. This is followed by handing over control. This is followed by lightness. This is followed by freedom. This releases the dreams.

  People try to hide from themselves, but I see through people. Everyone can see, for we all have the same instincts that kept previous generations alive. Society dictates the rules of what is acceptable, but in reality there are only the rules of nature. Natural Law. It’s impolite to point out a lie. I think it’s disrespectful to your own spirit to play into falsehoods. Outward faces and words are usually so different from their true selves and vulnerabilities that people like to hide. I see past them pretending to be who they wish they were. I see them convincing themselves that they are justified in their actions. I see THEM.

  The best way to describe the observation is to imagine a face that is made out of Silly Putty that is being animated. The mouth keeps moving with muffled noise but there is a bright light coming out of it and the colour of the light determines what they really feel. Sometimes this light is warming and delicate, and I chase these people around and seek more time with them. There is nothing more beautiful than someone being real.

  Sometimes their light is sick and they want to infect you with it, clawing you downwards in a desperate attempt to create safety in numbers. Sometimes the eyes are dead a
nd the light is dead and they are only a body. These are the truly dangerous ones, because there is room for a lost spirit to come and enter their vessel to use it to carry out the spirit’s own agenda. Steer clear of these ones. Do not spend too much time around them, because Time is shifting; the trajectory of our meagre existence is mapped out in energetic arteries. The dangerous ones can colour you. They can change your path. Do not eat around them, lest you accidentally consume their energy. Do not touch them; it allows a clearer path for them to enter. Mostly do not try to help them, because it is only like tying rocks to your feet and jumping into the icy waters with them.

  I see your face change.

  I see you.

  Walking home from school, the country music is loud again. The thumping is metronomic but the screeches and whoops of the listeners are chaotic. The house is shaking with people dancing. High-spirited laughter spills through the glass panes. Going home is never a good idea under these circumstances. The partiers will just demand that I echo their toxicity. Nothing bores me more. They think they are so clever but they are just bleary and repetitive.

  I keep walking and continue to the sea ice. My parents’ house is only fifty feet away from the immensity of the Arctic Ocean. I alternate taking walks on the water and walks on the land; they feed different parts of my feet and vibrate my femurs at different speeds. The sea seems eternal. She offers comfort in the form of Vast Solidarity. Our Original Home. I wonder if the wind currents could mimic the water currents if they had the same viscosity. The Northern Lights mirror each other on opposite sides of the earth. How much is connected? How much can we see while regulated by blood and flesh? The Ocean Ice can hold so much. Ice prevents decay; it can slow your burden. It can stop it completely by filling your lungs.

  Motionless. I am lying on the ice for an unknown amount of time because Time went for a walk. Ice in lung, fear in spleen, and river of blood flowing from my womb. Can the water be cognizant of my own fleshly currents through the ten feet of ocean ice? Can my blood join the ocean currents in ritual? Moon approves. He brings both blood and light upon those long winter nights. Wind on face, rhythm in chaos, and consolation in constellations.