What Our Bodies Cannot Hold

A personal essay about the author’s brother experience with Chiari malformation, a disease that affects the brain’s ability to control the body. The author leads the reader through an examination of the disease, the deterioration it causes in relation to the author’s brother’s gender transitioning. The author recounts the events of her childhood, as well as the adversity her brother and her brother’s partner faced from young adults to the present day, and how the author herself wonders about her place as the narrator of truth.