The Animators

by Kayla Rae Whitaker

My drug of choice at eighteen: the quiet devouring of boys in my head.

There’s a point, living here, at which you stop being the transplant, the tourist, and become something else. Not a New Yorker. God, no, never that. Just wearily, testily deft at being here. Strangely comforted by darkness and grime.