Boys

What happened to the boys I grew up with? The boys who would catch frogs with me at the pond. The ones who ran barefoot on the lawn and let me shoot their BB guns. 

The ones who cried when they didn’t get their nails painted because that’s for girls. The ones who belched the alphabet. The ones who made up dance routines to Madonna with me and my older sister. Who wrestled me and gave me bruises because I was one of them. 

The ones who skipped rope, who held flashlights under the blankets while I told the ghost stories and who never, ever wrote the words No Girls Allowed. 

These boys were like my brothers. These boys who weren’t boys at all and who let me be not a girl. What happens to boys then? Because I am not friends with any men.