The Dentist Mouth Smile

You know this smile.

The wide-open, jaw-unhinged, I’m-happy-or-I’ll-get-fired smile.

A smile so stretched it’s basically a crime scene.

A hostage video with better lighting.

No human has ever smiled like this without a camera pointed at them

and a marketing intern shouting,

WIDER. WE NEED TO SEE YOUR SOUL. AND YOUR ROOT CANAL.

This isn’t a smile.

It’s a compliance checkpoint.

A forced display of emotional nudity.

The facial equivalent of turning out your pockets for the police.

You stare into that mouth and see it,

the void.

The dark pit where a personality used to live

before it was scraped out for a brand partnership.

The teeth shine, yes

because the emptiness behind them has to be well lit

for the algorithm to feed.

Nothing says modern happiness like a gaping hole

framed by bleaching strips and despair.

This is joy as public performance.

Joy as dental archaeology.

Joy as a small, controlled violation.

Soon we’ll all be doing it,

snapping our jaws open at friends like demented pelicans,

yelling HI! while displaying the entire architecture of our inner grief.

The dentist-mouth smile:

the expression that tells the world,

I’m fine,

while clearly indicating you are not fine

and haven’t been fine

for quite some time.