Sometimes I picture myself in a red prom dress,
with converse under the tulle, and glitter
covering my eyes as I nervously glance
away from your face, inches from mine,
trying not to stare at your crooked bow-tie.
Sometimes we’re jumping over the tide’s
foam, under the moonlight, licking the salt from our lips—
my saddle shoes on the dunes, your jeans rolled
above the ankle, but my curls falling loose around my face.
Sometimes we’re moving black and white photographs,
1920’s with fringe and silver canes,
and sometimes

we’re like this. Naked on your mattress,
with the ceiling fan at a standstill, sipping
stale beer from old bottles you left lonely
on the windowsill. And sometimes I know better,
but tonight I answered your call and I came over
to your lazy bones on the sunken couch,
watching the lava lamp’s goo stick to the bottom,
yet still lighting
the entire room with a neon glow.
By now, you think I would know

that I can never count on you unless it’s cheap,
and convenient, and broken, and me. It’s only
ever me, but I can’t just haphazardly
stay in the spaces of your life that need filling.
I picture us, hugely, with a white house,
blue shutters, little kids building towers on the porch
just to knock them down.
The whole bit, picture it! But all
you ever see me as is figure
that you can reach if you squint hard enough—
a mirage that you like to believe
only you will ever hold.