My teeth come undone as we walk from one end of the city to the other, and back again. Shifting and tearing, I feel my bite transform behind closed lips until I try to picture the inside of my mouth, and all I can see is an awful maw, something not human: thrashing, jagged, yellowing. You tell me it’s probably from the cold. I disagree and don’t tell you so. I never do. 
          When the sun is setting and we’re nearly home, we see a cat leap into the middle of an empty street and catch a pigeon in her mouth out of mid-air. The cat is our favourite cat. She is dove-white with tan ears, and we have seen her lurking around town before, and we have named her Angelica, and we love her very much. The bird is like any other bird. I don’t know, I don’t care about pigeons, really. All I know is that it sits between our darling daughter’s teeth so perfectly. Wings still flapping, body surely punctured, neck craning anyways. An embarrassing attempt at keeping hold of a good thing. 
          The first time we saw Angelica, it was night and she was sauntering along the campus lawns like she knew what she wanted. I cried watching her and said She’s a whole person! in a whisper so as not to startle, not to scare. You loved me so much in that moment, I know because I could tell and also because you told me so later. You’re better than I am at saying I love you, even when maybe you don’t want to. 
          What about the time I laid against you like a ragdoll? My head to your chest, legs out, toddler-ish, my spine curved horribly and bent in two places like the doctor said it would be when I got to be all grown up. My whole body limp and not a gentle word in sight. In that moment, I didn’t belong to myself, I didn’t even belong to you—I’m sorry— but I belonged instead to everything that has ever happened to me, and everything I am afraid of, like: you leaving, like: me, having been the monster all along.
          In the middle of winter, we sit on my bed and freeze as you tell me how I have hurt you. I don’t disagree that I have. I think in fact that I’ve done worse than you have yet realized. As you speak, I look past your head and up at the drawing of Angelica that I asked you for. After a few weeks you handed it to me, two sketches of her on the lawn from that first meeting, and you put them against a backdrop of scrap fabric and Japanese paper, and chose a frame that fits with the rest of my wall. I cried when you gave it to me. I said: you are wonderful, and I meant it. I wonder where she is now. I hope she’s found a safe, warm place for the winter. I hope she has enough pigeons to last her till spring. 
          Our shivering synchronizes. Our lips turn the same shade of blue. You tell me you love me, and I don’t open my mouth. My teeth are worse, now. Snarling and curved and hungry for flesh. You say it again, and you look at me when you do: I love you. Hey. I love you. When I unhinge my jaws there will be blood. Angelica, Angelica, I love you, I love you. 

Bridget Wadden is a writer living in Tiohti:áke/Montreal. They write short stories, plays, personal essays, and the occasional poem. Their work can be found in Soliloquies Anthology and The Encore Poetry Project.