My boyfriend makes things easy. My boyfriend loves my cat. My boyfriend once chewed through a whole jawbreaker. My boyfriend smells like pine. My boyfriend dyed his hair violet blue. My boyfriend can’t play guitar. Once when he was younger my boyfriend got so angry about something that he cracked his head through a wood table and they sent him away to a specialized practice. My boyfriend likes fucking in cars. My boyfriend drinks strawberry milk. My boyfriend hates pickles. My boyfriend calls me gingersnap. My boyfriend went on a four-hour hike in the mineral-soaked earth and came back hungry so I made him tortellini soup. My boyfriend is an expert at fingering me. My boyfriend calls himself a big silly man. My boyfriend eats tofu. My boyfriend makes grocery lists so I don’t forget what we need. My boyfriend loves lemon poppyseed. My boyfriend is tough, likes to fight. My boyfriend threw a plate at the wall during one of his episodes. My boyfriend takes criticism badly. My boyfriend always forgives me. My boyfriend collects old keys. Sometimes my boyfriend gets sad and calls me. My boyfriend stood on a bridge and called me. My boyfriend is a good climber. My boyfriend climbed to the edge, looked at the clean water below, and said he had to tell me something. My boyfriend wanted to know if pain was slaughtering me every night. My boyfriend asked if it was possible to never feel it again, wouldn’t I do whatever it took? My boyfriend’s funeral was sparse. My boyfriend’s mother was crying. My boyfriend, before he jumped, broke up with me. My boyfriend hung up and didn’t answer his phone. My boyfriend was missing for three days. My boyfriend can’t swim. My boyfriend appeared in the kitchen while I was making hash browns a week later. My boyfriend said he wanted to set me free but hell is boring as fuck so he guesses he’ll just stay with me. My boyfriend watches me eat from the other end of the table. My boyfriend doesn’t say much. My boyfriend always lingers long. My boyfriend makes me shiver. My boyfriend is in every room I am in. My boyfriend puts his head on my lap when I sit on the couch. His skin is cold. He says hello.
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Nancy Huang (she/they) grew up in America and China. Her poetry, plays, and prose have been published by The Offing, poets.org, The Margins, and A24. Her debut collection, Favorite Daughter, was published by Write Bloody Publishing (2017). She has an MFA from NYU. She works in a cemetery.