The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side by J Brooke

This feature, chosen by Guest Editor EMDASH, is from I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side by J Brooke (Driftwood Press 2026).

CANCER SCARE

That’s how I know for sure I don’t
want top surgery I of course want

the outcome come out flat smooth
skin I want the reflection I always

squinted into mirrors hoping to see
myself reflected outside a loose tee

shirt beneath button downs ajar like
curtains loose layers layered looser

I pull again and again yanking poor
innocent fibers imploring they offer

impossible space for me to hide I’d
toss them all begin a fresh downsize

to medium or small jettison my soupy
slouchy swimmy threads dump donate

or burn the motherfuckers I desire that
outcome if only I can just blink it onto

me, awake to hands exploring my torso
my flat smooth chest no longer breasts

inhaling exhaling proudly satisfied and
yet I don’t get it that surgery I do not

choose surgery I do not elect it fearing
instead the scalpels needles anesthesia

I wonder was it the tonsillectomy I did
not need, elective surgery I didn’t elect

at 4 when I didn’t get a vote or was it
that rhinoplasty at 17 against my will

still no vote no voice my body bones
and skin I had in the game no control

like my uncle Stanley punctured at 42
by drains tubes liquid in and liquid out

emaciated once handsome stud I loved
visiting him that last hospital time that

could have done it But the lump under
my arm in my armpit (even my lymph

nodes avoid my breasts) so scary one
doctor calls another for a favor to see

me See them today it’s important
please and I go and they poke

and avert their eyes frown prod
order the MRI ASAP as I dress

recalling all those times I begged
god please don’t give me cancer

don’t make it cancer anything
but cancer but if I must cancer

god, please breast cancer then
radical bilateral removal not

elective but medically mandated
dissolution solution my problem

But I skirt death again the tests show
the lump is just some something acting

up inside me, a minor revolt I need no
surgery so I won’t get surgery and I live

on in the body I was mistakenly wrapped
inside Unwanted gift to myself I remain

National Bestselling author J Brooke’s (they/them) debut poetry book, I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side, received a starred Kirkus review, is a USA Today Bestseller, is included in Ms. Magazine’s Best Poetry Books of 2026, won Driftwood Press’s Editor Choice Award, and was Ashland Press’s 2025 Richard Snyder Prize Finalist. Brooke’s other honors include Pushcart & Best of the Net nominations, The Iowa Review’s 2025 Nonfiction Prize Finalist, Columbia Journal’s 2020 Nonfiction Prize Winner. Their work appears in Electric Lit, McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, Harvard Review, and elsewhere. They are Poetry Editor at Trans Poetics Archive and the Book Reviews Editor at The Rumpus. They can be found at JBrookewrites.com.

EMDASH a.k.a Emily Lu Gao (高璐璐) (she/they) is a poet-who-also-writes-fiction, educator, and daughter of Chinese immigrants. She writes to heal, grow, and decolonize. They’ve received support from LAMBDA, McCormack Writing Center, Sundress Publications, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, The Chinese American Museum of LA, Jersey City Arts Council and more. She has learned as much from community organizing and open mics as she did from her Rutgers-Newark MFA in Poetry. They’re published in Poetry Northwest, ANMLY, Alocasia, Underblong and elsewhere. She proudly hosted, produced, and curated The Word Bookstore Open Mic for two years.