By Mickie Kennedy

I liked him because nobody knew what he was. We were alike, bulging in all the wrong places. We tottered around, as if our bodies weren’t meant for movement. As if our bodies weren’t quite ours.

When I was twelve, my mother dropped me at the mall for a meet-and-greet. Grimace was planted in front of a plastic date palm. I was the oldest kid there. Permed mothers kept sending me dubious looks. A group of boys pointed, then giggled.

When I finally reached the front, he was bigger than I’d imagined—a swollen spade, a hill-sized bruise. He pulled me close for a photo, and I kept myself against him. The mothers whispered, but I didn’t let go. I couldn’t. You gotta move on, kid, said the head inside the head. A soft voice. Too soft. Human.

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Mickie Kennedy (he/him) is a gay writer who resides in Baltimore County, Maryland. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Threepenny Review, POETRY, The Southern Review, Colorado Review, Gulf Coast, Black Warrior Review, Copper Nickel, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter/X @MickiePoet or his website mickiekennedy.com.