I do not know what pronouns to use
\nfor the girl I was at nine years old,
\nsitting across from another girl <\/p>\n
who was not a girl at all. As he bit
\ninto his burrito, I imagined that one of us
\nwas a boy– it didn\u2019t matter who– and we <\/p>\n
were on a date. I imagined that we
\nhad driven to Taco Bell in my lime green
\nconvertible, that I steered with one hand <\/p>\n
because he was holding the other. I imagined
\nthat he looked like John Lennon in his round
\nsunglasses, that he\u2019d insisted we eat here <\/p>\n
because of how much I loved the bean burritos,
\nsaying it\u2019s alright babe, I don\u2019t mind. I imagined
\nthat he always called me babe, that our whole <\/p>\n
life was a sleepover that never ended.
\nAt nine years old, our hands were too
\nsmall to know what it meant to hold <\/p>\n
each other, though we held on through
\nsweaty palms and wayward glances
\nfrom strangers in line to order their <\/p>\n
crunchwraps and double-shelled tacos,
\ntoo rushed to call us out for being dykes.
\nThey would have been wrong and right <\/p>\n
about who we would become. Now, we attend
\ncolleges on opposite sides of the state,
\nonly meet in the summer. We never say <\/p>\n
anything about the burritos we ate
\none-handed, though we still look into
\neach other\u2019s eyes without daring to ask <\/p>\n
what we\u2019re looking for. Our Taco Bell
\nhas been gone for years now. Another
\nrestaurant stands in its place. We drive <\/p>\n
away in seperate cars. In a year\u2019s time,
\nhe will no longer know what to call me,
\nand I will begin to hate bean burritos. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I do not know what pronouns to use for the girl I was at nine years old, sitting across from another girl who was not a girl at all. As he bit into his burrito, I imagined that one of us was a boy– it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1091,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1091"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46848"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46878,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46848\/revisions\/46878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}