dysphoria
is sitting in front of a mirror
for 30 straight minutes
picking out the tiny things
that make people misgender you.

trying to pull back your chest
pretending you have a flat one
scratching down your biceps
because maybe if they were more toned
you would be called a boy
clawing at your thighs
because if they were small and beautiful
then people might think you are a he

dysphoria
is sobbing while doing all of that
the mirror is now your enemy
giving you a million things to change
but you have no way of changing it.

maybe sleeping will help?
that is if you get past your thoughts
of your disgusting body
calm down for a bit to even let you slip into somber.

but then dreams come
you dream of being on testosterone
having a beard with a deep voice
maybe even your top surgery
where you no longer have to deal with having a chest

but you wake up
no way of getting these things
it haunts you for days.

dysphoria
is the mirror no longer being
a place to just fix up your hair or do your make up
it’s where your demons live
passing by a reflective surface
and seeing even a glance of your body
makes you want to die and tear it apart

dysphoria
is someone brushing against your thigh
and you wanting to puke everything
you have ever eaten
because they touched your body
a disgusting girls body
it can’t be mine
but I hate it none the less

dysphoria
is someone taking out your soul and choking it
the lack of breath comes from a panic attack
your nails clawing and digging into your skin
because this can’t be you. this isn’t mine
this body needs fixing
so does this soul.

I don't fit.
If only it were that easy. If only I could go to a different store and find a better size. If only I could unzip this skin and find a better fit.
My body feels foreign as I move and stretch, watching my reflection in the mirror. This cannot be me. It can't be.
Because I do not have ******* today. I do not have a large, curvaceous body.
No. Today, I should have a flat chest. I should have muscular arms and stubble on my chin.
But I don't.
Instead I see who I once was. Who I was yesterday is not who I am today is not who I will be tomorrow. I want my current body.
I want the body that fits.

How can restriction be so freeing?
Constricted in nylon compression
Freedom in mind
Shallow breaths
But filled with smiles
With a skip in my step

Trapped in a body
That isn't mine
I don't recognize
Myself, anymore
Long hair- hate it
Make up- dread it
But still I dress up
Go along with the act
I can't tell anyone
Or my life will go
To shreds

"you're a boy? but you look like a girl."
graces my ears too often for it to be innocent anymore.
some days i wish the word woman didn't make me cringe
i wish i didn't have to tell teacher after teacher,
"i know what it says in attendance, but my name is atlas and my pronouns are he/him i'm depending on you not to ***** up, i need this to feel normal, please don't make me feel invalid like all my efforts to erase the young lady i was expected to be at birth will never amount to anything more than a teenager's attempt to be 'different'"
i think sometimes i hate my mind more than my body, because it's the one that does the screaming.

I do not hate my body for the dysphoria, I do not hate it for the wrong that it is for me but instead love it for the right it should have been for someone else.

I treasure my arms and my legs, my face and my chest, and I work to mold them into the kind of perfection I will never desire, because the only alternative is stepping into a pyre and proving to the world that this birth was not for me by trial of fire

I respect the body I was born into, even if at times it mixes the black and it mixes the blue, even if I recognize that all this forced-on love perpetuates the crimes of gender that I have worked so hard to hide

I hold myself with the strength that my dream self carries, and slip away into the mind-ferries that take me back to the days when I would pick black-berries and realize that like my lips they would look fine as hell colored with cherries

I do not hate this body for the dysphoria, I just feel the sting of eyes that immediately think ‘male’ when I wear a dress, like, do I have to write it on my forehead that ‘she’ is how you need to address me?! Do I have to rip off my ***** and sew on a different *** for you to learn how to respect me?

I cry this body to sleep, rocking it in my arms because I know that like my brown father’s black baby it’s not wanted. It’s perfection is a defection that I wish I could love, but when I don’t watch my thoughts I just find myself wanting it to leave.

I do not hate this body for the dysphoria, I just feel like I should have been given a body in which I could get cozy, one that fit me, one not for Tom, Or George, but instead for Josie.

Before me stands a 'mirror',
Before my eyes open,
You tell me to prepare myself,
For I am about to see my reflection-
A live image of myself.
So I open my eyes.
And I scream.
And I run.
For what I see is not who I am.