I’ve always been a man’s girl in the way people are allergic to shellfish; accidentally,

violently, by proximity. They’re everywhere — crushed in air vents, floating in the water

supply. I don’t go looking for them. They find me, swelling in hives and small talk. It’s

not affection. It’s exposure therapy I never signed up for.

I wasn’t born with this allergy, this cellular recoil against XY chromosomes marinated

in gym sweat and entitlement. It developed over time, like an evolutionary joke.

Somewhere between larva and crustacean, my soft, damp body began to molt; losing its

grubby feet with every taunt, conference, and locker shove. By six years old, I was

starting to harden into a creature that knows the ocean will kill it, but will keep

crawling toward the tide anyway.

The quiet apprenticeship in disgust arrived in doses. Playground-sized, cafeteria-sized.

Every micro-subjection to boy cultivated my entomological inclinations. I watched how

they swarmed, how they tested the softness of things, how boredom turned their little

bodies mean. Antennae first, feelings later — my skin rubbing plate by plate, a tolerance

building itself out of refusal.