stop not smoking before bed

i buy a record, bring it home, put it on. it has your songs on it, but someone else singing. through some unholy miracle i find you, or you are there. i play it for you and i wonder who came first, who's the fraud. we make jokes about it.

the ice cream store is the biggest scene, it's the size of a cafeteria, and the whole time it's exchanges like, I thought you had baby sized, small medium and large; if we have had that, we don't have it anymore. they put blueberries the size of plums in my cup, i was only asking for cookie dough and oreos. I asked to see the manager and they said they have never seen them. i wonder where my girlfriend is, she makes things better, she works here, but not tonight. we sit in a big group of people, on opposite sides.

we walked out of the ice cream store, our hands touched. i locked your finger with my finger, i took another finger, rubbed it back and forth in your palm, a common gesture to me, one friends give each other to let each other know, i'm here for you, everything will be okay.

you grab my wrist and take me from the crowd, you find a porch to sit on, and throw us on there and say:

this is why i will (n)ever love you:

i ask you to clarify, but you smile and move on:


oh seven grain, you think you are so great, you have seven whole grains?
you make sandwiches called monkey wrenches all day
you complain about ice cream, and the smallest things,
when you are the smallest thing.
why do you have records with my words on it,
from other people?

and on and on, most of it nonsense, all of it nonsense, but with each word i miss a vertebra, my body goes limp, my mouth gets dumb, i have nothing to say, he's right he's right and I'm sorry, sorry sorry.

i wake up, naked and  turning in my white sheets, toes curled into the comforter, which is poorly named. i rub my hands across my stomach and chest, and tell myself to stop dreaming of you.