Summer by Chen Chen

Summer

 

You are the ice cream sandwich connoisseur of your generation.

 

Blessed are your floral shorteralls, your deeply pink fanny pack with travel size lint roller just in case.

 

Level of splendiferous in your outfit: 200.

 

Types of invisible pain stemming from adolescent disasters in classrooms, locker rooms, & quite often Toyota Camrys: at least 10,000.

 

You are not a jigglypuff, not yet a wigglytuff.

 

Reporters & fathers call your generation “the worst.”

 

Which really means “queer kids who could go online & learn that queer doesn’t have to mean disaster.”

 

Or dead.

 

Instead, queer means, splendiferously, you.

 

& you means someone who knows that common flavors for ice cream sandwiches in Singapore include red bean, yam, & honeydew.

 

Your powers are great, are growing.

 

One day you will create an online personality quiz that also freshens the breath.

 

The next day you will tell your father, You were wrong to say that I had to change.

 

To make me promise I would. To make me promise.

 

& promise.