Fern

I'm 22 years old I'm right and left handed. I don’t have a middle name. I don't eat goat's cheese. I just got my driver's license back and for as long as I can remember I've been really into good ramen and bad puns.

I believe there are only two kinds of people in the worlds those who admit they've never peed in the shower and liars.

I'm not religious. My faith in God died when my grandmother did. But a few months ago I saw my nephew's face for the first time and now I can't help but think that maybe heaven is not something we need to die to get to I go to an elite college which means I'm not the most profitable way to ship food from a factory to supermarket but I don't know the middle names of any of the women who cook my lunch every day. I'm the son of a man who never misses a home cooked meal or skips his dishwashing duties. The son of a woman told me that my name is an earthquake and waiting she said it holds it in your mouth like the most beautiful secret that this world has yet to know I'm only 5 foot 8 on a really good day.

But being built like a short story is a lesson in finding other ways to being the tallest tale in the room. I don't know what it means to be a man and for a while I thought the weight room could tell me but I've heard stories of men with shotgun barrels for arms who use their bodies as weapons. I've seen them shoot their mouths off and leave bullet holes in women's spirits. My sisters say that they raised me to be a good guy but I have a set of knuckles swollen with the memory of teeth and blood and black eyes from the dudes at Astoria park and I'm still learning to unlearn my own violence reminded every day that a righteous heart inside a male body is just a gun with a safety left on. And I know boys who are still searching for the manhood inside bottles, Bank accounts in between nameless hips. Those who voice remote control their partners because they're not strong enough to let things go.

I know that men carry an addiction to property in our blood. Now when I was a kid I shoplifted things I didn't need or want just to feel like there was something in this world that I could own. I know the most beautiful thing about love is that it cannot be owned somedays I still am the 13 year old that his stomach drops itself every time Elissa Nunez walks past his lunch table and I don't watch much TV these days but I'm still a Nickelodeon kid at heart. So please ask me who loves orange soda I will tell you.

I will tell you I've broken more of my own bones than promises In my life I'm still figuring out how to hold onto this helium balloon called happiness. I’ve got charisma down to a science. But most days I still have less confidence than English weather but I'm learning everyday what it means to be human without being whole. Every night the sky opens its mouth and swallows the sun in a single gulp.