kimabutch: [ID: a poem in two screenshots. The poem reads:Long after I’d found deliverance in
kimabutch: [ID: a poem in two screenshots. The poem reads:Long after I’d found deliverance in a suit and tie, I kept my old dresses. Back of the closet, not quite out of sight — that guilt never quite out of mind.How could I bear to throw out these beautiful gifts? (That I never wore) Hadn’t I wanted them? (Hadn’t I wanted to want them?) Hadn’t I been excited to receive them? (Hadn’t I watched in the mirror as a pretty stranger put them on, constricted in flowing skirts?)Maybe I’d want them some day. I’d show myself off to my family. “Look how happy I am with what you gave me.” “I’m not ungrateful.” “You knew me so well.” I never did.I’ve got great boobs, in my lesbian opinion. I can’t hate them when I look in the mirror. Size, shape, weight — stalwart against months of testosterone, years of binding, more than a decade of their wrongness clawing at me, even as I prayed to want them.Won’t I like them someday? Won’t I want to feed a child? Won’t my lovers like them? Shouldn’t I feel grateful?I gave away my dresses, in the end — to my then-girlfriend, to my sister, to charity; heart whole to see someone else want them. My chest aches to do the same: give its breasts to one who’ll treat them well, with a user’s guide. “Yeah, they’ll hurt before your period, but they’re sensitive too, if you like that. Don’t forget to wash under them in the summer.”A Double Incision Mastectomy With Free Nipple Grafts (top surgery) doesn’t work like that — uses most of the breasts to make a new chest. Hardly enough left over for a woman in need, only enough to turn my fantastic boobs into flat pecs (As scissors cut up dresses to make vests) (As needles stitch button-down shirts from old skirts.)And maybe— maybe I loved the unwanted fabric of my body enough to give it strength to become something else. Not a giveaway, but a transformation.End ID.]A poem that I’ve been working on for a while but thinking about for years. Thanks for reading if you do. -- source link
#poetry#gender#gender dysphoria