Sigurljóð ljóðasamkeppni // Poetry Competition Winner: Mr. Doctor by Isaac Goodman

Mr. Doctor

The other day I went to the hormone doctor to get some hormones.

And I described to him how there's this bitch in my head

Who won't stop complaining about my lack of tits

She'd rather have me dead, than without hips

So please Mr. Doctor, I need your wits

Tear my gender dysphoria, to bits.

He declined.

Perhaps my perspective was misaligned

Since you see, I don't use the pronoun "she"

My shoulders and voice, they're fine with me

But as Mr. Doctor described, how he would proceed

(If he were certain that I was a she)

He would not let my body be.

Mr. Doctor prescribed laser hair removal, voice therapy,

Feminizations that made it clear to see that he wanted to bind me.

Resign me to a cage,

Watch me depress with age,

Since all the old men, only want young girls, these days.

Femininity is not a pair of pantyhose.

I will not thrust my thick thighs in, until the rows of fine stitches grow, until they overload,

My womanhood is prose!

It is a thank-you-note to those who set women free.

Let every girl grow up to be who she wants to be.

See the power of beauty unbound,

All round the globe, let us awake, for our own sake, set us free.

Make it apparent, that women are more than wombs

Let the wounds cut by Mr. Doctor's harsh words heal, And reveal:

There is no one way to be.

Isaac Goodman (they/them)