Heejae Cho

boyhanded girls

you grew onions on your balcony for our science experiment & we whispered to the bulbs
what boys would say to me in coming years: i love you. or fuck you. curses sprouting
careful in our young mouths when the loving should have been more cautious. you wanted
to be a boy till you cut your hair too short & didn’t like it. i always took the girl
in the couples we kept renaming ourselves into: playing lovers as mari & jaemin, braving
fifth grade as yumi & jaejoon, again, again till we lost all the ways we pronounced best
friend. you lied that you moved when you hadn’t & i screamed at another girl. & though i would
have played the crazy girlfriend or fretting wife better between the two of us, i don’t know if
you’ve also thought i’d like her if i were a boy. if you, too, have forgotten all the ways
you found me except for the desire to do so. the last time i saw you i should have known just how far
away that imaginary move had already taken you but it was spring & you were telling somebody about a boy
you met at summer camp & i turned around baffled that i didn’t know about your first boyfriend & i don’t
know if i told you about mine & you said you were sorry. for years you only said you were sorry.
we manhandled each other with boys’ hands. i’m sorry. & i’m sorry that i can’t
remember what for. all i know are the times i could have adopted a boymouth but didn’t & all that i forgave
you for already, as if i was not a minefield instead of a boy who could know to want you. maybe i’m glad
we didn’t know we could stay girls & still like each other. that i spared you from my love. i could
have overflowed your balcony and seeped all my young, first fuck yous all around your home.