Diss For EE Uh

these days i am stuck

choosing between binding and breathing

because nobody knew to tell me

that wearing this less severe corset

for more than eight hours at a time

could turn my ribs into a steel trap

around my lungs and my skin

would be able to count the seconds

that ticked by as that fabric

rubbed tighter and tighter

against my body

 

but it was worth it

at least for the first few minutes

until my breath became trapped

inside my body somewhere

between my lungs and my

nose and my mouth

and climbing three flights of stairs

from one class to the next felt

like running a marathon

with my legs tied together

 

and standing naked from the

waist up in the women’s bathroom

hating every second of wrestling the

binder off of sweat-soaked skin

made me want to reach into

my body through sheer force of will

and years of hatred

and scoop out the fat that made

up my breasts

 

and i am accustomed to this

the want to remove the parts

of me that make people

tie me to the words

of she

and girl

and her

and mother

and sister

and woman

and and and

those things that i am not

those things that i never was

those things that i never will be

 

wanting to cut off

the parts of me that continue to lock

me into the involuntary box of

the female gender

makes me feel like a freak

and a monster

and a bad person for not loving

the body that a god with a penchant

for sick jokes stuck me in

 

but some days the dysphoria

makes it tempting to choose

binding over breathing

because even though my tolerance

for doing so is only about an hour

at this point isn’t an hour of relief

better than nothing at all