I keep picturing bugs when I think of my body:
maggots crawling across white flesh
steaming in the heat
rib cage open to the elements.

I wish my brain would stop going there,
acknowledge the breath in my lungs
and claim that as good enough,
but my body feels alien.

I picture brambles growing through it,
vines tangled in the holes of my eyes
tree roots pinning my wrists to the ground.
I picture silence like a graveyard in empty ears,
spider webs between my finger tips.

This is what dysphoria feels like.
Crack open the coffin and let me out,
split my body at its seams,
internal organs in the leaf litter.
Carry my beating heart away
and find a home for it. 

My fingernails long to rip into whiteness
and fix it with trails of red
rearrange my pieces until they fit right
trade my hip bones for new ones 
at the cemetery

slice lines into my chest with the kitchen scissors;
six months is too long to wait for top surgery
and the bugs in the leaf litter are 
hungry. 

Thistle Dunsmuir is a queer, non-binary writer currently residing on the west coast of Canada. Their writing focuses on themes of gender, mental health, and identity. Their work has appeared in Vagabond City Press, and they perform regularly in their hometown of Victoria. You can follow them on Instagram at @editingbythistle.