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By Tahirah Alexander Green
restrict my breathing to survive another day in a body that doesn’t look the way i need it to. i don’t know what i want my face to look like, but i worry this outfit makes me look more teenage boy than dapper queer. i want to look clean, crisp, put together. flat, but maybe that’s internalized oppression. i seek adornment that celebrates my form on the days my form reflects my mind.
you’re not supposed to bind every day, but sometimes the freedom from a breast is worth the aching of your chest. some days i love my body. love areola and belly and scar. swallow reflections and yearn for more. but today my cleavage makes me all wrong, all mix-matched from my identity. i haven’t felt this way before. i ask myself if it’s a phase or something rumbling in the background, waiting for me to turn and growl back I AM NOT A WOMAN.
i wore hand-me-down gender for so long it was all holes and tatters when i finally tossed it in the craft bin to be remade. will i love my breasts tomorrow? wake up affirmed by their weight pressed into my mattress? when sun shines through our blinds it patterns them so pretty. would i love them more if they had stripes? if tucking each above wire felt like ritual instead of chore? will i ever love this body? could a new body be me? knowing is a familiar obstacle, but this time...i just don’t know. when its sunday and i’m naked in bed with my lover everything fits. skin, limb, fat, and mark. that’s all i want, really. for everything to fit.
Tahirah Alexander Green (they/them) is a queer, Black, nonbinary literary artist based in Washington DC. They are committed to celebrating Black queer weirdos in their work by crafting stories that nourish, heal, or disrupt. They are a 2021 DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Fellow, 2021 Tin House Fellow, 2020 Hurston/Wright workshop participant, and 2019 Lambda Literary Fellow. Their work has appeared in The Rumpus, Electric Literature, Black Youth Project, and more.