Dear Wigleaf,

The dentist says my tooth needs to be extracted because there is a "persistent infection in the bone." But I'm not in pain, I say, it's not bothering me at all. He says he doesn't want to alarm me, but just leaving it to fester might very well lead to an infection in the brain. I raise my eyebrows at him, and he shrugs. Hey, it could happen, he says. You don't have to feel it yourself to know you need to fix it. Even though it's difficult to speak while he's doing dentist things in my mouth, I say, Oh you mean like racial injustice? You mean like systemic racism? I see that he's trying to decide if he should pretend he didn't understand me, but it's early November 2020 and we're all laying our shit on the line, aren't we? He says, Hey, hey, you! Where is all this coming from? He laughs, he wheels around a little on his stool. And then he smiles a sad smile which I can only see in his eyes because he's wearing a mask and one of those astronaut-like protective face coverings. We're on the same side, he says. I promise you we are. He touches my shoulder for a moment before getting back to work. And that's the third time I ever cried at the dentist.

Yours in vulnerability and pain,

Veronica