by Carina Stopenski
As a child, I used to dream of being small: thin, brittle bones and delicate features, an immeasurable desire to be unseen. I grew too tall too quickly, a shadow casting over my peers in every class photo. They used to call me the Bog Witch, my dishwater blonde hair always unkempt, dark circles beneath my eyes, unshaven and unlovable. Even in slumped posture, I resembled more monster than girl.
The doctors told me that they were bone spurs, hardened growths beneath the surface protruding outwards, made worse by my constant growth spurts. Nevertheless, I still went to the woods every day to climb the trees, clinging to the things that minimized me. There were days I went to bed and prayed to God I would wake with legs that fit my body, and if He could not give me that, to leave me with no legs at all. My parents said that my height was part of my beauty, that someday a suitor who was even taller than I was would sweep me off my enormous feet and make me his bride.
Sometimes, I felt like that was a future more terrifying than death.
“Is your bag packed?” Wynn asks as they gather my paperwork into a bright yellow folder. “We’re not gonna be able to turn around once we’re on the road, and the faster we get there, the faster they’ll take you.”
“That’s not how it works, babe,” I sigh, giving them a peck on the cheek. I never meant to fall in love with Wynn, and I’m sure they’d say the same of me. Yet, in their soft, wiry arms I find shelter, something I haven’t been able to find in years. “How far is the drive, anyway?”
“Three hours.”
“Shit.” I rub my temple and stare at my watch. We gather our suitcases by the door and Wynn methodically counts each of the houndstooth print bags at least three times. I am grateful that Wynn’s sister has offered up her guest room while I heal, only fifteen minutes from the hospital, though I would have preferred to heal from home. “You want me to drive?”
Wynn’s hands are shaking. “No, no, I can do it. It’ll keep my mind off of everything. Besides, you can’t be stressed, Cas. You need to rest on the way there.”
There is no use in fighting with Wynn. When I revealed to them that I was planning on top surgery, they recoiled not out of disgust but out of fear of the pain it would cause me. Wynn was one of those people who was unapologetically comfortable in the body they were given, the birthright of androgyny. It was no use explaining the intricacies of the procedure to them, they were still hesitant about how I may heal, my bones in all their busted glory.
As we carry the bags to the car, Wynn is silent. I rarely see them scared, and even less frequently see them without words. They crank the car radio on a cheesy 80’s rock station and I fantasize about the last time we slept together, a final veneration for the breasts that would be lost to biohazard. There was an understood respect in the way their fingers caressed my body, as if to say, I love you regardless of the vessel that houses you.
My phone vibrates, and I see my mother’s number across the screen. I groan and reluctantly answer. “Hello?”
“Cassandra, I heard you’re going forward with that surgery today,” Mom barks on the other end of the line. “I just want you to know that God loves your body the way it is. You don’t have to mutilate yourself, you’re such a pretty girl.” I can already imagine her, shouting into her phone, flecks of spittle spewing from her mouth as she chastises her beloved only child.
Wynn gestures at me to hang up with a free hand, but I inhale deeply before answering. “I’m sorry, Mom, but I think you and I may believe in different Gods, because the one I choose to believe in loves me regardless of what I look like and who I love.” A pause. “I wish I had a mother who did the same.”
“Now, you know we didn’t raise you like that!”
“A correction, Dad didn’t raise me like that, yes, but you didn’t raise me at all.”
She shudders, the fake sob she used to get me to apologize. “You know I was sick! Would you rather I have parented you drunk? Left needles out for you to get ahold of? Oh, wouldn’t that have made me mother of the year!”
“I’m not having this conversation with you. Call me when you want to behave like an adult.” I hear her start to spout gibberish about how ungrateful I am, but I hang up before she can get out a full sentence. For a moment, I am no longer Cas, full-grown adult with a job and prospects. For a moment, I am Cassandra, neglected and dirty, taking kitchen shears to my wrists because no parent has been home in days and no one can stop me.
Wynn turns down the radio. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m proud of you. You kept your cool. I know it’s hard for you to do that with her.”
I don’t answer. Tears prick the corners of my eyes, and I decide instead to focus on Wynn’s right hand placed gingerly on my leg, tracing a heart back and forward with their index finger as their other hand steers us towards a new future.
Once I have been discharged from post-op, Wynn and I make our way to Alison’s home, where she has situated her guest room with a cavalcade of pillows, blankets, and soothing candles. Ever the hostess, she greets us at the door and gives us each a kiss on the cheek.
“Come in, come in!” Alison corrals us into the house while helping lift our bags. “You’ve had such a long day, here, come get comfortable.”
Every part of me aches. I feel as if I am limping, moving in slow motion. Wynn helps guide me to the bed in the spare room and supports my head with a thick, plush quilt. They bend down and push a strand of hair behind my ear. As we listen to Alison mutter to herself as she struggles with our suitcases, Wynn lies next to me, and I think to myself, this is truly what family is.
“How sore are you?” Wynn asks. I can feel their stare zoning in on my side profile. “Do you want to be alone?”
“No, no, it’s fine. Stay with me.”
We snuggle quietly in bed as Alison brings in two mugs of tea for us to sip on, and I let all the hot, sweet liquid slide down my throat, fueling me as if the time spent on the operating table sucked my body dry.
“Thirsty, huh?” Alison chimes, taking my empty mug back. “You want a refill? Kettle’s still on.”
I nod, embarrassed but too parched to care. “Yes, please, if it’s not too much trouble.”
“Oh, not at all! Give me a second.”
Wynn is still slowly nursing their mug, looking me up and down. “You sure you’re feeling okay? I can let you sleep if you want.”
Before I can answer, my eyes flutter closed. I still feel Wynn’s body pressed up against mine, the coolness of their skin against the warmth of mine in perfect harmony beneath the covers.
When I awaken, I feel a sharp, stabbing pain at my incision site. The bandages are saturated and I am too afraid to assess the damage. Did I pop a stitch already? So symmetrically, too?
“Wynn!” My voice is hoarse and small all at once, like a wounded bird fallen from the nest. I cannot muster the strength to be any louder.
Wynn comes running, a frantic look in their eyes as they finger through the aftercare paperwork the surgeon had given them. “Wait, calm down, we’re gonna get through this, okay?” Maybe they were talking to me, maybe to themself.
“Check…the bandage.”
Wynn unzips the oversized hoodie I had been wearing, giving myself room to breathe. They release a puzzled gasp. “Cas, this isn’t blood.”
“What do you mean it isn’t blood?”
“It’s not red, it’s like yellowy. And looks sticky? Maybe it’s pus or lymph, should I call your doctor?”
“Let me look,” I muster before tilting my head down. It appears as if the gauze has been dipped in honey, a slimy amber film covering the tufts of white cotton. I narrow my eyes. “There’s no way. Wynn, do you trust me?”
“Of course I do, why?”
“I need you to taste what’s coming out of my incision.”
A look of horror spreads across Wynn’s face. “Are you joking? That’s not funny, I’m not going to do that.”
“Just trust me, please? I need to know if I’m right about this.”
Not without a cringe, Wynn extends an index finger and swabs the exterior of one of the gauze pads, bringing it to their lips. They look as if they may gag, but once the golden fluid touches their tongue, their expression changes. “It’s…sap.”
“It’s sap, right? It has to be. Why is there sap coming out of me?” I start to cry, and as if on cue, Wynn begins a sobbing fit as well.
“I don’t know, okay? We need to call your doctor now, no waiting for your one-week post-op. This isn’t fucking normal, Cas, not even a bit.”
I bite my tongue. The pain is excruciating, but to go back to the doctor so quickly? It would prove to my mother that she was right, that this procedure was dangerous and has caused me irrevocable harm. I do not want to believe that the one thing I believed would heal my heart would poison my body.
“You know what, I’m calling,” Wynn says in my direction, not able to look down at my seeping chest. “Hopefully they can take us first thing in the morning.”
With a quiet nod of assent, I rezip my jacket and barricade myself under the covers, keeping my fingers crossed that my oozing wounds will behave themselves until daybreak.
“I don’t understand, all your results came back normal,” Dr. Ng says as she fiddles with my paperwork. “No clotting issues, no stitches rejecting, no problems adjusting to anesthesia. Have you ever had a surgery before this?”
Wynn and Alison are out in the waiting room as I sit in the cold, sterile examination room. I had hoped my post-op check-in would not have to come so soon, but the troublesome leakage from my incisions, coupled with a newfound tenderness in my wrists and ankles, has rendered me absolutely terrified. “No, no surgeries, but I did have to go under anesthesia for a tooth extraction once. Didn’t have any reactions.
“Well, we can eliminate that, then,” Dr. Ng answers, scribbling furiously onto her clipboard. She attempts a closer look at my bandages, squinting at her handiwork. “Do your parents have a history of surgical procedures? Usually we can make some inferences on allergies and reactions based on relation.”
“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen my father in years and my mother and I aren’t necessarily on the best terms.
A slow, apologetic frown comes across Dr. Ng’s face. “Ah, I’m sorry to hear that, Cas. Unfortunately, I really don’t know what this could be stemming from.”
“But you agree, right?”
“Agree with what?”
“It’s sap, not lymph, right?”
Dr. Ng takes a deep breath. “Cas, are you familiar with the term postoperative delirium?” She hands me a thick pamphlet with the term bolded on the cover. “It typically impacts older adults and seniors but can appear in young patients if they have a history of mental illness.”
I feel my heart make its way down to my stomach and I try to stop any tears that may make their way out. “You think I’m crazy?”
“No, not at all, I’m just thinking you may be reacting to the anesthesia with a bit of a psychotic episode. This typically goes away after a week or two. However, I do think your incision seepage is a little troublesome so I’m going to send a sample to the lab. Should get the results by tomorrow afternoon.”
I sit silent, hands folded in my lap as she takes a long swab to both sides of my incisions. There was no use in fighting this thing, I knew my truth but it would not be heard even if I screamed it out.
After I redress and saunter out to the waiting room, Wynn and their sister both stand up, expecting good news. I shrug, and Wynn hugs me as tenderly as they can without bumping the fresh cuts on my chest.
“I’ll go warm up the car,” Alison breaks the silence, heading out the door of the clinic. Wynn grabs my hand and we follow a bit more slowly behind her.
Wynn speaks in hushed tones as we walk down the office corridor. “So what does the doctor think it is?”
I hand them the pamphlet and manage a half-smile. “Apparently a bout of medically-induced psychosis.”
“But it’s sap! I tasted it! This is medical gaslighting at its finest, I swear.”
“They’re sending out a sample to test and see what it is.”
“I don’t care if they’re getting a sample! I saw it with my own eyes, and so did you. Is that not enough? I’m not the one who had surgery, am I psychotic too?”
The space falls silent, and I squint my eyes tight. Am I crazy? Is this all some grandiose hallucination brought on by the one thing that I have been looking forward to for years? “I just want to go. Can you hand me my jacket?”
Wynn obliges, tossing me the hoodie that has become something of a security blanket. I throw it over my fragile torso and shuffle to the exit, holding Wynn’s hand just a bit too tight. I take the backseat of Alison’s SUV, sprawl myself out and sigh. I assure myself this is just a blip in the pathway of progress, we will get through this, I will get through this.
I just want to feel good again.
“Let me touch you.”
“You’re crazy, you’re still healing.” Alison is at work, and Wynn lays beside me in bed as we watch some cheesy soap opera. I have not had the heart to check my incision sites since I was at the doctor yesterday, and they have me slated for another post-op in a few days’ time when the lab culture from the sap will be back.
“C’mon, please,” I whine, pawing at Wynn’s stomach, trying my best to not exacerbate my pain. “Let me kiss you.”
Wynn leans over to me, our faces nearly touching. “You can’t do anything too strenuous, you’ll hurt yourself.”
“Oh, but you know you’re so good at making me feel better.”
Wynn bites their lip before pressing their mouth against mine, throwing their leg over me. As they straddle me, I kiss them with a ferocity we had not explored in months. I pull them against me and fumble for the remote, shutting off the television so the only sound in the air is our soft breath.
As I tug on their hair and their fingernails trace down the sides of my face, Wynn pulls back and winces. “Ow, fuck!”
I groan as I shift to an angle. “Shit, did I hurt you?”
“No, it’s nothing…just felt like something pricked me.”
I run my tongue across my teeth, looking for any spiky offenders, when I notice a sharp growth on the inside of my left cheek like an ulcer. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Just get back to kissing me.”
“No, I need a break, I’m sorry.” Wynn moves off of me and sits at the edge of the bed, clutching their knees to their chest like a child. “This is a lot for me too, okay?”
Sometimes I wonder whether or not Wynn and I only love each other because of proximity. We joke that we were a one-night stand gone wrong, two tender dykes that were too soft for the casual encounters that came so easily to our peers. I spent my time with leather daddies and fierce lipstick femmes at the queer bar in our college town, and Wynn was a social justice softie. They have had to grow hardened since our time in university, but underneath the surface, sometimes I still see that timid underclassman who was so afraid to kiss me for the first time, who believed our meeting was kismet but still was terrified by the prospect of loving me.
“I’ll try to be better. I’m sorry.”
We both sit with the quiet as we breathe each other in. I love them as best as I can in my fractured state. I feel them between my fingers and let them cry as I touch them. I give them a dozen tiny kisses down their abdomen, pockmarks and acne scars turned to reveled constellations. When they moan out my name, toes curling, I notice another growth pricking inside my mouth, this time on the underside of my tongue.
But I do not stop. I love Wynn the way they need to be loved: soft, loud, and with the rapt attention of an individual who truly sees them. I will not let this affliction hold our affection hostage.
When we wake up, we can hear our host stirring in the kitchen. Wynn and I lay naked from our midday adventure, their chest pressed against me as they spoon me. I suck in my cheeks and notice three more of the tiny barbs forming in my mouth, and my gauze pads are in dire need of changing. I move my hand to my chest and slough off the excess sap that had been pooling atop the bandages. The substance has grown more viscous, resembling honey or syrup more than sap.
Suddenly, I feel a thorny growth at the side of my left incision site. I gingerly lift Wynn’s arm off of me and turn them onto their side, slinking off the bed to examine myself in the mirror.
This is the first time I’ve looked at my body since the procedure. I turn to my side and see my flat chest above my tummy pouch, but my thighs are still thick and my hips still scream out “I am meant to carry dreams in my womb.”
I will never be free from the prison of this body.
As I feel the sharpness grow in my chest, I peel back the bandage with bated breath, anticipating a festering wound. Yet, I am greeted with something far more troublesome: a thick, spiny vine split through the stitching. A few small clusters of leaves collect at the source, soft with the peach fuzz of new blossoms.
“Shit,” I whisper to myself, trying to force the leaves back inside my incision site, but it is no use. With each shove comes a new leaf, or a small branch, or a ragged thorn tearing through the flesh. Soon, the whole wound has reopened.
I shout for Wynn, but they do not come. Instead, Alison knocks at the bathroom door. “Everything okay, Cas?”
“Could you just get Wynn? I don’t want you to have to deal with this.”
“Oh, it’s not a problem,” Alison answers through the door, wiggling the locked knob. “You wanna unlock the door so I can see what’s up?”
Reluctantly, I turn the knob and let her inside, putting all my sappy, leafy glory on display. The left side of my chest torn open, a hard woody patch has been exposed beneath my skin, right where my heart should be. “I don’t know what’s happening.”
Alison covers her hand to her mouth. “Is that…bark?”
“I think so? And leaves. There are some branches in my mouth too, I think. Little ones, but I can feel them inside.”
“Jesus, Cas.” Her breathing begins to quicken and I can tell she is growing panicked. “I’ll get Wynn.”
“I feel like they’re angry with me, don’t wake them.”
“No, they need to see this. We need to get you to your doctor, like, ASAP.”
The flesh begins to slough off of me, exposing more wood where my dermis should be. Where there should be muscle and webbing of fat, fuzzy patches of green-brown moss emerge and cascade onto the floor in tufts. I feel the lesions in my mouth begin to work their way out instead of in, tearing through my cheeks like small, painful cysts.
Gritting my teeth, I attempt to extract one of the tiny branches from my cheek with a pair of tweezers like an ingrown hair, but as I pull, it just keeps coming until another vine, about an inch in diameter, has worked its way out through a bloody hole, leaking sap and goo.
As I try my best to rewrap bandages around my chest, the growth on my face begins to burgeon small white buds, a spring bloom. I don’t think I’m hallucinating. The pain is too great to be a figment of my imagination.
The two siblings enter the bathroom and see me slumped on the floor, desperately trying to force my nature back inside. When I weep, the tears are sticky.
“Cas…” Wynn’s voice is shaky as they see me sniveling. They trail off and rather than retreating behind the doorframe as Alison had, they bend down beside me and assess the growths. “Obviously we need to cut them off.”
“You’re joking.”
“No, dead serious. Obviously the root is deep inside you. We need to just trim it down and you can’t touch it anymore.” Wynn is surprisingly calm about the whole thing. They reach into the medicine cabinet and grab a nail file, whittling down the hardy stem until it hits the floor with a thud.
I cry out for the child in me that always had to care for themself. When I was young, I spent so much of my time in the woods gathering bright red berries and fuzzy green stems, hoping to emulate the holistic practices of my matriarchal clan. Instead, I was left to tend to bug bites alone, lather calamine on my scarred arms while I waited for my mother to return from the bar. Born-again or not, I would always be in opposition to my youth.
Alison breaks the silence. “Wynn, maybe we shouldtry to pull the stems from the root. What if they just keep growing? It’s like a pimple, you got to get rid of it all or else it’ll just come back.”
“But this is an easier way to buy us some time until we figure out what’s going on.” Wynn hacks at the brittle fauna sprouting from my skin. I try not to suck my cheeks in from the blunt sound of the nail file so close to my skin, fearing that I may tear open my mouth with the spines growing inside.
“Besides,” I interject, slow and careful with my mouth full of needles, “I feel like this is a little more than a pimple.”
Wynn and Alison both help me back out to the bedroom and let me slide onto the bed, starfishing my limbs out as more twigs begin to rip through my skin. The sound is like cutting through an overdone steak, knife on the bias of tough, mealy muscle. I stifle a yelp as Wynn removes a stubborn chunk of moss from my ribcage.
As I close my eyes, the sap from my incision site now festering in my nostrils like mucus. The wooded patch on my torso grows larger as the skin and tendons snap and wither, new knots and ridges forming with each sharp movement. “I should’ve never done this. This was a mistake.”
Wynn squirts antibiotic cream into their hand and applies it to the bits of my chest that are still unmarked by the vines. “Cas, calm down, you’re going to make yourself worse.” They slough the dead skin from the corners of the wounds that had been shredded at their edges, the visible parts of my body pinkish and tender: the rawness reminds me that I am still human.
Wynn fidgets with the stems emerging from my side, their fingertips growing wet and gummy as they investigate. I wonder if this is what has always filled my insides. The room has grown balmy with my sweat and jutting protrusions, a greenhouse born from my body. The last thing I see before my eyes close is Wynn’s sharp jaw glinting under the overhead lamp as they hack away at the branches.
“Cas, are you awake? Stay with me here.”
The voice is faint and garbled as I dip in and out of consciousness, half-lucid as I enter sleep. The only sound I recognize is the babbling hum of the creek I called home as a child and a moderate downpour. As I trudge through the bristling thickets and cattails, branches jut out from my arms and legs, attempting to take root in the marshy sludge. My bones ache and splinter, a maelstrom of branches and veins poking out of my rough, pimply skin. With each pus-filled pocket pierced through with new boughs and sprigs, I hear the voice of my mother in the brush, a memory echoing as I fight to bring myself out of sleep.
If you don’t get out of them damn woods, they’re gonna take you as one of their own. The tomboy Bog Witch has been taken back by their provenance.
I feel the branches twisting out of me and cough out a few dandelion tufts. My eyes, my nose, my incision site: they all weep the sap that had started this all. I will free myself even if it kills me.
With an abrupt inhale, I grab hold of the bark barricading my heart and yank, the squelching sound of wood separating from fat and tissue resonating around me. Flecks of clot mingle with clumps of peat, my palms tacky with my viscera. As I reach inside my chest cavity, I notice the culprit: a seedling sprouting from the inside of my sternum.
When I rip the tiny green stalk from between the chambers of my heart, a hoarse, inhuman scream escapes my lungs before the world around me goes white.
“Cas, please wake up.” I am brought back to life by Wynn’s tears dropping like rain against my chest. Their hands cradle my face and I tilt my head up to kiss them when I notice that the metallic taste that had come with the branchlet gashes in my mouth has disappeared. I blink my eyes a few times and rub the tiredness from them, expecting the goo of sap but am met only with the regular eye gunk that comes with a good night’s rest. I breathe in deep and it is surprisingly easy. I don’t know whether to celebrate or panic.
“Look down. Please, just look.”
I acquiesce to Wynn’s plea to notice my chest is free from the strangling vines that had made my body their home, no more chunks of tree thrust through pockets of vulnerable flesh. Even more shocking, my incision sites are nowhere to be found. Where stitches had been, my skin has sutured itself back without a hitch. I run my hands up the smooth, unmarred trunk of my body. “Where…where did they go?”
“Don’t worry about that!” Wynn exclaims. They hold the tiny, bloody seedling in the palm of their hand. “We got it. It’s all going to be okay.” A goofy smile even crawls across their face. “I can’t believe that it worked.”
When I look at my lover, they are covered in blood and clumps of flesh, a few twigs snagging against the cotton blanket beside us. They are panting, covered in brush burns, a few lacerations on their forearms from reaching deep inside—nothing extreme, just like the ones I used to get as a child in the trees.
For so long, I believed that my heart would forever be calcified, hardened and strangulated by the solemnity that came with my lonely existence. There is a reason I retreated to the city: I was convinced nothing good would come from the place I called home. Yet, as Wynn holds the sprout in their hands, wide smile covering their slender, gore-stained face, and I lay prostrate and unscathed, I realize that I can sever those roots so long as I can make home with them.
We will always love each other regardless of the vessels that house us, the bodies that constrain us, the homes that we have found in each other.
Carina Stopenski (they/them) is a writer, teacher, and librarian based out of Pittsburgh, PA. Carina received their BFA in Creative Writing from Chatham University, their MSLS in Library Science from Clarion University of Pennsylvania, and their MA in Literary and Cultural Studies from Carnegie Mellon University. Most recently, their work has been featured or is forthcoming in God’s Cruel Joke, iō Literary Journal, Cosmic Double, Fauxmoir, and Button Eye Review, among others. Carina’s writing centers around the queer experience, body studies, and transhumanist perspectives. You can follow their work at www.carinastopenskiwriter.com.