Sickles manages to capture queer anxiety, regret, and longing so effortlessly in one simple, solid monologue. Everyone has a "what if" in their life that plagues their mind forever, in all of its curiosity and despair. "Boy's State" lingers in that exact same way.

This is a powerful depiction of regret for a road not taken. So many good memories of the narrator's Boys State experience are overshadowed by one failure to connect. There are certainly numerous humorous recollections but the cumulative effect is moving and as enduring to me as it was for the narrator.

We have all met hundreds of people in our lives. Some we know, most we don't. Every now and then, the people in the latter group fill our memories and occupy our thoughts. Scott Sickles's endearing and powerful monologue brings to life the funny, awkward and cringe-inducing youth conference of his teen years, punctuating it with a random encounter (but not an interaction) that still haunts the writer like it will haunt the audience long after the lights go down.