I've only known you
for about as long as
it will take me
to finish this second
cup of coffee
and cigarette number four.

Only four and
it's already sunrise!
This is the start
of something new, yet

I can't help but wonder
if I will twist you
the way I broke
the thermostat
manipulatively
out of curiosity
(I only wanted to see
how high the heat would go!)

or worse yet,
if you will drop me
clumsily like you did
your precious wooden clarinet,
exhausted
from your hours of
playing.

I don't know you,
and you certainly
do not know me.
You see the mannequin
I dress up and put
on display, but he
does not speak of the ******
in my nightstand, the erotica
on my hard drive,
these scribbles of cynicism.

Of course,
I'll continue to think
of you, ideally
as much as you'll think
of me,
and we'll invent fun facts
about one another for
sharing with our friends 'round
the bonfire before our bitter
truths reveal themselves
like 17-year cicadas
digging their way to
freedom

and we'll try not to
be too disappointed like
the tired waitress
for whom I left a dollar
(with my number on it)
or a lousy poem
bestowed with breath,
cruelly made self-aware.