I hate hockey, but can we still be friends?

As you can tell, I am a fifteen-year-old boy, and this is true. I lie on my bed and listen to my mom's old albums. I am listening to Whale Music, and I feel like you know me even though it was recorded before I was born.

Dear Dave Bidini, did you think the world would have changed by now? When you were growing up, did they have trans?

I think I am trans. I am not really a boy, but when I think about having sex, I always imagine that I am a boy doing it with a boy. In my dream, I have a penis, and I am doing it to the other boy with my penis. I lied about being a boy. This part is true. Dear Dave Bidini, I hope this is not embarrassing for you.

Dear Dave Bidini, Solomon is in my Algebra class, and is called Sol. His parents home-schooled him until this year. Home-schooled kids are supposed to be different and open-minded, so I might be able to be friends with him. Tomorrow I am going to give Sol a note in Algebra.

Dear Dave Bidini, I asked Sol if he wanted to come over to my place after school tomorrow. He said yes.

Dear Dave Bidini, Sol is coming over today. He barely looked at me in Algebra.

Dear Dave Bidini, Sol will be here in a few hours.

Dear Dave Bidini, I just shaved my head.

Sol didn't mind it. He said he thought it was cool. And when he sat down on my bed to do homework, we did homework. Dave Bidini, I wish we'd had sex. His skin smelled like rain. When he was reading his textbook, the back of his neck looked very smooth and brown. There were fine hairs on it in the shape of an arrow that pointed to a place that made me want to put my hands down the front of his pants. Are everyone's thoughts this dirty? The backs of his ears are beautiful.

When he left, I lay on my bed, rubbing my crotch against my palm. I pretended Sol was on top of me, and that I was fucking his butt. I'm a girl, Dave Bidini, so this is trouble.

My mom came home from work about the time I had finished making supper. I made hamburgers and frozen French fries and Caesar salad. When she saw my scalp, she didn't say much. She couldn't, exactly, having told me, my whole life, "A Mohawk, dear, is always a good fashion choice." She is obsessed with The Clash, and they are dead. But I could tell she didn't like it, because she started pulling out hats after supper, asking which one I was going to wear to school tomorrow.

Dear Dave Bidini, today at school Sol ignored me. No one noticed my shaved head, or if they did, they didn't say anything. I wore a hat. No one ever looks at me anyway.

There is a girl in my class who everyone says is a lesbian. I'm not interested in her. The thought of her bust against mine just makes me thinking of hugging an air bag. It would be soft and squishy and I would sink into it like it was an airbag on impact and I would die from the thing that was supposed to save me. I can't even think about what it would be like on her down there. I want to feel my hard chest against Solly's hard chest. I would like the sound of his teeth knocking against mine when we kissed.

Dear Dave Bidini, when I came home from school today, my mother was already here. She was crying at the kitchen table, holding a Polaroid of her mom. She told me she was crying because she was remembering her mom, but that it's not my job to carry her emotions. Yeah right, like she really means that. When I went into my room, she was still crying. I could hear her. I started thinking about a song I could play for her to cheer her up. I went out to the kitchen and put my iPod buds in her ears, so she could listen to Record Body Count. Dear Dave Bidini, she just kept crying. I wonder if she has depression.

It's just me and my mom, Dave Bidini. We are a single-parent, single-child family. There was never a father, Dave Bidini. I think he was some guy in a band. It's the only thing that makes sense to me, Dave Bidini: my father was a rockstar, and my mother was a guitar. I am not some one, Dave Bidini. I am some thing. I feel like a thing, when I listen to music. There is a guitar solo you do in between Rain and Queer that makes me feel like it is actually being played on my stomach. It's not so bad.

When my mom came into my room, she sat on my bed and kissed me and told me she loves me. Then she said, "You should tell people how much they mean to you before they die."

God, she is so creepy sometimes. But I am thinking, Dave Bidini, that I should tell you how much your music means to me before you die. Are you old, Dave Bidini?

When we came out of the evening and into the Kinsmen Field House, people were still mostly in their seats. I wanted to be right in front, so I dragged the girl I was with down the aisle. It was as though we were a bathtub plug that had just been pulled: I looked behind, and everyone was draining toward us, carrying us to the edge of the stage.

Big bass notes rolled through like a hearse.

The hall went black suddenly, then the lights came up fast on treble chord chops.

Twelve.

There. Feet planted together, right leg jerking with each chop like he's trying to stomp change out of a hole in his pocket. White shoes, white jeans, black cowboy shirt with the sleeves cut off, white star in a red circle on the black t-shirt underneath.

I nail the first line, right on cue, sing along so that I'm part of the band.

The girl I'm with thrusts her mouth to my ear and screams, "Oh my god I want to fuck him."