Dysphoria
BY JARI BRADLEY
I say boy not sure if I mean myself
or an undoing, a slippage of sex
but always meaning a tender violence
or child’s play, a way of becoming
I say boi and mean a small
god of making—an appraisal
of my bad shape, it’s favor of the
blood that does & does not come
dysphoria is what it is called when
I say I don’t care for my breasts or
is what I mean by they get in the way
I say man and mean hunger
or twin tongue; a kin taste for cruelty
stalled at the site of the first wound
I say heel and mean to keep
the dogged fear at bay as its hands
tear into my hefty frame, persistent
until I feel a pit opening inside me
I say girl and mean Lord have mercy
on those days where I didn’t deserve any
of it, have mercy on how weak I believed I was.