“Top Surgery” A Poem on Transmasc Healing, Binding, and Becoming

Through three layers

of nylon pressing

down on ribs and chest.

This is the first breath of Top Surgery, one of the rawest poems I’ve written in a while.

I’ve been on testosterone for ten years now. I’m eight years post-op. But when I wrote this, I was right back in that skin. I was sweating through binders in summer heat, ribs bruised, spine curved, trying to breathe under the weight of nylon and hope.

This piece isn’t just about a surgical moment. It’s about the years I spent binding, the secret shame I carried, and the quiet determination it took to claim my body as mine. It’s about the chest that was never wrong, just never mine.

It’s also about the way survival stories sit under the skin, even long after you think you’ve healed.

When people talk about top surgery, it’s often framed as a “before and after.” But there’s a whole damn novel in the middle. The years of pressing down, of hiding, of reshaping yourself just to be seen.

Thank you for reading. And if you’ve been there too, in a binder, in the waiting room, in the body that didn’t match the mirror… I see you.