You keep me in the breast pocket of a heavy winter coat
Tucked away with crumbled receipts
For shaving gel, condoms, and sleeping medication
Hidden close to your heart

You keep me in the pocket of the jeans you keep discarded on the floor
Under collared shirts and a sweatshirt you got from a club you never joined
Damp with the scent of my sweat and poorly made Chinese food
Because playing with you is like playing house, playing me in the kitchen, you in the office
Us in linen sheets

We're harmless
We're impossible (That's what you told me)
We're just a house that's not real, really
And an imagination that I've let run away from me

We're locked away in a box I keep on my desk
On the torn out corner of a note you passed to me from the pocket of your winter coat
We're crammed between ticket stubs and a cherry stem your tongue laced into a knot
In your sloppy cursive, coated with time in my sloppy optimism:
"I love you"