“Have you ever heard the phrase tooth bruise?” my dentist asked. This was after he poked around in my mouth.
“I haven’t,” I said. I wish I never had.
Sudden and excruciating pain in my mouth brought me to the dentist office last week. I was certain I needed an emergency root canal. Or to be put down. If only.
After banging some of my teeth and asking me to bite on things, my dentist taught me the terrible phrase I am writing about this week. Tooth bruise.
What is a tooth bruise? I wish I didn’t know.
If you bite down too hard on a popcorn kernel, which I might have done a few days ago, it can lead to a tooth bruise. A tooth bruise is untreatable. It takes anywhere from weeks to a month to heal. There is no treatment but time. It is agony when you bite down. It is constant and throbbing pain.
I am in agony as I type this sentence. This one, too. It occurs to me that Tooth Bruise is about the best name of a punk band I can imagine. Or perhaps a punk song?
***
The pain I’m currently experiencing inspired me to write these lyrics to a punk song:
Walking down the street
Who do I meet?
Tooth Bruise!
Things are going great,
Just you wait,
Tooth Bruise!
Can’t get to sleep
Can’t chew or eat,
Tooth Bruise!
Dull aching pain,
Make you go insane,
Tooth Bruise!
-Tooth Bruise!, S. Tanner, 2026 (unrecorded)
And so on.
***
I’ve been sucking on ice. Taking as much Tylenol as the warning labels lets me. Drinking Orajel. Not actually drinking Orajel, but bathing my gums in it.
This has not been a particularly pleasant last couple of days.
Kind reader, if you are feeling a little low, just know that it could always be worse. You could have a tooth bruise. So be grateful that you don’t, and say a little prayer for my aching mouth.
And please enjoy the melody that you made in your own head as you read the lyrics to my punk song, Tooth Bruise!
Samuel Jaye Tanner 