Personal Issues with Top Surgery by J Brooke
"I consider scars always considering my brand."
Personal Issues with Top Surgery
by J Brooke
Scrolling Instagram in a bathroom
(mindless avoidance my old friend)
seasoning my days callousing agile
fingertips while I pray not my heart
as well. Oh hell, how awful my life
when my algorithm disappoints me
like this day, streaming royal family
reels I didn’t search for. I barely care
these whiter than white billionaires
spew & skew racist. I watched them
fictionalized on Netflix— a version
so well-acted, so well edited, so well
my nosy phone eavesdropped, ratted
me out so now I’m stuck scrolling
princes I don’t care about riding
horses I don’t care about so hide
content I hit (tho adorable animal
scrolling I of course like conveyed
as ♡ but too many cats and hardly
enough bears if you ask me.) I used
to spew “my spirit animal is a bear”
before updating— me appropriating
at best & racist at worst making me
more royal I guess than bear-like…
I’m really most similar to teen boys
on my feed fooling around jumping
around horsing around in jeans often
shirtless their defined torsos liberated
strong cut perfect except for the scars
those damn scars remaining evidence
road map tracing backwards to where
their femaleness got removed— knifed
away like a branding— I consider scars
always considering my brand & if I can
handle such branding… I’d love myself
so much more in a t-shirt, except bare-
chested I imagine myself exposed still,
averting my eyes whenever passing
mirrors or windows reflecting like I do
now, always folding my arms covering
my chest, in photos I post I imagine it
my symbol of strength (only in reality
my symbol is hiding) still hiding always
hiding out— like I do in bathroom stalls
stalling as I do, as if behind palace walls
not a pretender— I have come out & out
& out again, so how is it I remain
still in hiding? 
From I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side (Driftwood Press, 2026). Copyright © 2026 by J Brooke. Used with permission from J Brooke on behalf of Driftwood Press. All rights reserved.