Before you were he when you were still sort of she you lived at the surface of your thin skin, heart in your breast pocket half hanging out and no one really believed that pronoun.

There was no pronoun for you.

We were spring chicken fuzzy babies in torn up Carharts and hoodies without sleeves, Tony Danza but we were our own bosses.

The first time I saw you in a kissing booth, red lip sign one dollar a pop, you were too shy to be working at kissing.

Your eyes said umm my eyes said hello and I chose you out of three. We made a bonfire in a nylon tent and you ran like the eye of a tornado quick in fear of your heart slipping all the way out of your pocket and falling to the ground, a water balloon burst.

Raki is a Jewish, queer, experimental fiction and poetry writer. Her stories have been published in Restless, Monkey Puzzle, Wilde Magazine, Not Enough Night, and on her flash fiction, dream-inspired blog, Night Stories. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University and currently lives in Minneapolis. You can find more of her work here.