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i told you once about the scar tissue. how i imagined them half moon smiling, a productive rope of sutures reshaping the boundaries of the body. but i didn't know how it would be; could just imagine the other scars peeled off and re-affixed on top of ribcage, under arch of collarbone and foundation of sternum.
but here is how it is: the ropes are still candy pink licorice and when he presses his fingers into them and asks can you feel this? they turn into sticky sugar whips hugged around my torso. the hair has grown back and then some in soft dark fur. it creeps up from my belly and sits newly welcomed on the convex of muscle.
here is how it is: the soft rub of the cotton against the skin; the nipples no longer tender or nerve-end-reattaching-prickly. the posture of the body is slowly straightening, the shoulders their own body part now, more than acting as an unstable framework for decaying tissue.
they want me to tell you it is a different body. they want me to tell you this body had to be reassigned, dismantled and recreated.
instead i will tell you this body is the same, welcoming itself back into the world after a quiet rest. i will tell you this body, once adorned in dresses and breasts, fake fur and feathers, is the same body that still appears in certain dreams.