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THE
BODY
ā ā ā
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THE LETTERS
Dear Rib,
As the story goes, you were removed from Adam to create Eve. A piece, taken from man, to create woman. And men have been resenting the loss ever since.
In my body, however, you held firm and unwaveringly strong against large hands gripping you as the rest of my body was treated like an object, against baseballs thrown at you, against the collapse of your wards, my lungs and my heart.
During every panic attack, during every depressive episode, as my lungs and then my heart took turns shriveling, you protected them.
You protected them, and you protected me, as we were terrorized, but you are not without complications yourself.
Because you, my friend, are a remarkably gendered bone.
You made Eve, the woman who caused the Fall, whose flagrant female sexuality was too much for the perfect Eden.
But I donāt want to be Eve. I want to be Lilith, Jewish mythologyās feminist demon, created from the same dirt as Adam. Lilith didnāt like Eden, didnāt like Adam, didnāt like prescribed femininity and the subservience it entailed. So she left. She left there, she left him, she left it all.
Now I navigate the leaving. I have neither Eden nor Adam to leave. But I have a name, and hair, and a role designated by my birth in this body. Now I leave them all.
Rib, you made Eve. You were strong enough to hold up against the large hands, the baseballs, and the misbehaviors of my heart and lungs. You were strong enough, once, to make an entire woman from a piece of another person.
Now, can you make an entire person from a piece of woman?
Dearest Skin,
Despite the art I have carved into you, you provide me with an impeccable memory.
I know of all of the places Iāve hurt and been hurt, and I wonāt forget them.
to my body-
iām sorry that you became a battlefield.
neither of us ever wanted this, but
destiny is not easy to run from and
with every passing moment you are farther away from me.
to my eyes-
i am sorry the light was stolen from you.
that they covered the stained glass windows to our soul with vantablack:
S V I S, blocking ninety-nine
point eight percent
of all light,
but like khatun i would rather you be struck blind than bear witness
to the atrocities that will befall this body
in the name of survival.
in the name of a light bill.
to my hands-
you deserved so much more;
to be held with meaning like
you are more than just spare parts
made to be commodity sold in pieces.
you have spent so much of your life
tied toward one another but
you
are not bound to the needs of someone else.
so, do not grind your bones underfoot just
so some boy with a two dollar haircut
and chipped black nail polish can rise
and have a really good story to tell.
to my breath-
i am sorry i lost you.
come back.
to my blood vessels-
carrying electric signals like a radio switcher
you let me feel everything.
for that i canāt help
but hate you.
to my mind-
you kept me from everything,
leaving
only gaps in nights full of color and life. i thank you
for pulling me away from here.
to the tendons in my heart-
entropy is the second law of thermodynamics.
the natural state of this universe is chaos.
everything dies. iām
trying to think of a poetic way to tell you
that your broken strings will never be repaired but rather
become a chapel to all the times weāve been used,
but itās no use.
a graveyard knows itās a graveyard because
itās where things that have been forgotten
come to disappear.
iām here.
it hurts to be alone,
believe me, i know.
but iāll stay with you.
weāll grow a meadow
from the things weāve tried to forget.
to my tongue-
i thank you for never giving up the fight,
even when im unable to put together a sentence.
the best is
when you continue to fool the people around me
who could not read a cry for help
if it were written into their hands like umbridge.
ever the deceiver.
you can repeat lies like scripture like,
iām okay!
i just know
iām going to be okay
because that is what i truly believe!
to my legs-
i promise the only time you will ever part
against my will again
is during exercise.
to my hair-
i will never cut you
just for the privilege of care.
you are worth more than the stains in someone elseās bed.
you are sacred strands of goddess fabric
passed from the morrigan.
i am proud
to have someone pull you
even if i want them to stop.
to my nails-
dig until you draw blood
find the little ways to make him pay.
to my smile-
come back.
to my ears-
donāt give up on me now.
to my feet-
keep running because
the worst is not over.
To the folds and flaps between my legs,
You make me uncomfortable.
Your shape confuses me and causes me to question who I am, what I am. Youāre a jigsaw puzzle piece that doesnāt quite fit anywhere, but we manage to make it work.
Weāve always made it work.
I silently succumbed to your limits, always gentle and careful with my prodding. You make yourself scarce underneath your wealth of thick curly hair, hiding the form that feels like a betrayal. You remind me that it doesnāt have to be a betrayal, that you are what I make you and you know that Iām never out to harm you.
But other people, they try to harm us. Theyāre not so gentle in their prodding, nor do they respect the silent understanding weāve forged. I hear that itās wrong that we donāt touch each other or look at each other, that real love would entail both of these things. And people shame me for not pushing things inside of you.
They donāt know our agreement: you hide your naked form to console me and I end the silicone war against you.
You know weāre trans just as much as I do, and so objects being inserted into you feel terrifyingly foreign. Youāre not a vagina, youāre not a vessel for man and his seed. And I will not take that away from you because someone tells me to. Iāll let you live in what folks may see as blissful ignorance, in all your hairy glory and without the pressure of acknowledging your femininity. You donāt want to be a vagina because you arenāt one. And I would never force you to be one by using you in ways that force you to disassociate. You are a magical hairy pulsating sex machine, and one day we can sew up that hole. We can sew it up and we can forget it ever happened. And no one will hurt you ever again. I promise.
Our relationship really started after the assault, after I was forced to confront the ways in which and the reasons why my body was the way it was. I didnāt realize just what you were trying to tell me until you were threatened: until the fear of being forced to be both a victim and a woman took over us in those 5ā10 minutes I struggled to fight him off. I always saw you as a āwork in progress.ā But Iām starting to think that perhaps it is I who is the work in progress. Maybe I always have been, and youāve been perfectly imperfect all these years, saying the same thing over and over again. You always knew it, but it just took me a long time to really listen.
Physically, the space between my legs is you. No amount of pubic hair or careful maneuvering could change the fact that you exist. The folds decorating your depths feel deeply wrong, confusing even. So confusing that you couldnāt stand to allow a tampon to be placed inside of you when I attempted such a feat at age 11.
But I see you now, I know what you are.
When I close my eyes, I can feel you as my dick between my legs in my hand. This is especially the case when Iām aroused. I can feel you hard and pulsatingāand itās the most natural feeling in the world. The flesh youāre in now is certainly entrapping, but an imagination is a lovely thing.
But youāre endangered. Endangered by a world full of hate and by my heart, which is full of confusion and doubt about you.
I sometimes wonder if I want to erase you because we were assaulted. That is to say, what if Iām not really trans, but merely a cis female survivor of sexual assault? What if I only want to get rid of my vagina because of the vulnerability it represents? This is what my mom asks me, and the more she asks this, the more I wonder. The more I consider returning to a life of betraying your truth.
I wonder if I could go back in time and tell my abuser, āwait, stop, Iām really a man,ā would that have made a difference? Would he have hurt me, us, anyway, or even more so due to my dishonesty and gender identity? Or would he have said, āoops, my badā and walked away from me? Is it right to want to shift rape culture away from me because Iām not a woman? Is it wrong to be confused about being subject to anti-female rhetoric from men while really being a man myself? Is it wrong that my gender identity truly feels more than besides the point when it comes to misogynistic actions and culture?
I want to stop assigning my politics, societal expectations and my fear of being problematic to my feelings and my body. To you, vagina. Is it okay if I call you something different, by the way? Perhaps āva-hoon?ā I heard Ilana Glazer say that once, in Broad City I think, and immediately took a liking to the phrase. I hope you feel that it suits you.
Most of all, I hope you know that youāre beautiful and worthy of love. Even if you donāt look quite right. I am your ally and Iām always listening.
Love,
Dear Torso,
Did you know the body is a diary? Itās written all its secrets underneath the skin. Sometimes my brain reminds me that if I just dig deep enough I could carve them out and get rid of them.
Other times, Torso, I wish people could just read you plainly. See the words youāve braved (and spoken) and respond accordingly with a kindness usually reser...
