“I will not kiss Bo Larson. I will not think about Bo Larson.”

The expression “I will not kiss Bo Larson. I will not think about Bo Larson” is Willowdean Dickson’s self-directed mantra of resistance to her attraction to Bo Larson. Repeated first in denial and then answered by a blunt admission that she is kissing and thinking about him, it marks the gap between the self she tries to command and the desire already overtaking that command.

Form and Repetition

Willowdean describes the words as a mantra that repeats in her head; when she is alone, she says them aloud as well. The two-part structure couples an action she fears with the thought she is trying to suppress. Repeating both prohibitions makes the effort sound deliberate, but also shows that Bo has already occupied the attention she means to turn away from. The line returns after Willowdean is allowed to try on a crown at All That Shines, the Clover City jewelry store that distributes Miss Blue Bonnet crowns across Texas. The crown’s shine soon gives way to a slammed shift at Harpy’s, where Bo leaves the kitchen to help her on register. The mantra persists through this change of setting and circumstance: neither the pageant object nor the demands of work displace the thought of him.

Reversal

The vow’s wording makes its eventual reversal especially sharp. As Bo moves close enough that their noses brush and his lips stop short of hers, the narration replaces refusal with the present-tense declaration, “I am kissing Bo Larson. I am thinking of Bo Larson.” The repeated name and parallel syntax remain, but the negative future-oriented rule becomes an acknowledgment of what is happening now. That shift is not presented as a tidy resolution of Willowdean’s uncertainty. She describes the approach as redefining what she thought she knew of herself, including her discretion and pride; at the same time, she says the feeling of being small empowers her. The scene leaves the mantra behind at the point when her experience no longer fits its terms.

Narrative Significance

The expression works as more than a forecast of a kiss: its recurrence lets the reader hear resistance failing from within. Willowdean can state the prohibition, repeat it, and even speak it aloud, but the repetition itself keeps Bo present in her thoughts. When the sentence changes from “I will not” to “I am,” the language registers the reversal without disguising it as a planned decision. The mantra’s importance lies in that contrast between attempted control and lived experience.