Love in a Delinquent Matriarchy Is More Than Just Love and Hate

If there is another life, I will forget you for all eternity.

Under the cherry tree that day, when you asked me, as I lamented the passing of spring, whether there could be another life in which I belonged to you alone...

But you weren't the only one who asked. And not one of them made me a promise. Perhaps, to those gang girls, loyalty to the underworld and their gang strongholds mattered more than I did.

What was the summit they were chasing? A school? A street? A district? A city? ...There was no end to it, but I would never be the one they spoke of.

I love you. I don't know how to say I love you. I don't even know what love means. But I'm willing to say I love you and bear every consequence that comes with it.

But I hate you, too.

I hate you with all my heart.

For all eternity.