Let’s pretend you’re someone else I whisper
to my champagne camry: a green monster

truck or a slim chopper fueled by havoc. I enact the same
fantasy stroking my neck beard in the mirror.

Will these bottle cap earrings compromise my don’t **** with me aura?
What about magenta nail polish? What about blue irises?

Those brown halos around your pupils: the first and only time my lips sheltered
yours. I gripped your arm and swallowed some spit, letting my mustache

pins tickle your stubbly chin. You, too, are a memory I displace in reflection.
I’d never do that again and I really haven’t—it was the white stuffed in our noses,

it was because no one else was around. We were friends; I’m
still too young for exile. Although I admit that the red lips I’ve drained

since have never turned blue like yours, that potent indigo
camouflaging your bushy eyebrows and sasquatch legs.

In the driver’s seat I spot the burn streak on the frayed ceiling
—the accidental joint bristling the top after the momentary us.

I could've let the ash tumble among the crevices instead of
blighting the interior, but I didn’t. Instead a black indelible

Rubicon, one I surely hadn’t mean to cross, greets me
every time I strap myself to the wheel of this engine.

Let’s pretend I’m someone else I recite in the rear view mirror.
The pretty woman at the drive thru window slides her number between

the fries & burger combo. I’ll never call, but I keep the napkin in my wallet,
on the off chance that one day I’ll be someone who would.

Much more than anything else,
really, I’d like to write you
a formal letter, explaining the ways
in which you suffered me, apologizing
for everything I  haven’t done and
all that I have—to seal the envelope
with waxy spit, praying you
send a near facsimile back.

Say it done. Even then
I couldn’t pain myself
enough to mail it. I did
consider it once crossing the
sidewalk—should my insides
******* the windshield of a
UPS truck, would you call it even,
at least commute my sentence?
I considered it, but in
all likelihood I knew
I’d recover tethered to some
hospital bed and become the
person who didn’t have
the muscle to pull it off.

After ******* in the woods
behind my house I fantasize seeing your face
see mine in a casket, open and well-lit,
draped with expensive flowers; you
fumble with wisteria,
buckle from hysteria
and slip down the velvet steps, unbecoming
like stuffing squeezed from a torn pillow.
I go inside, make a sandwich and
calculate how many days I have loved you.