He went back into the moments when he’d create jagged sutures of kisses on her paralyzed arms and she’d murmur how she’d love him forever. But those moments blurred as another attacked—her saying she’d love him forever, though she left him for someone more secure and less in his head.
Sitting on the subway, he laughed aloud and a man with a picture of a taco on his shirt didn’t seem too happy, and he thought, Why can’t I laugh on the subway? The one time I do, a massive soft shell of guilt envelops me? So he closed his eyes and went back to the first moments, but those had changed. He was alone with their futon and it was dark and rainy. In reality the futon no longer existed—it had been taken to the dump months before, though it was still a good bed, it served its purpose, and he opened an eye to see the digital readout of stations overhead because maybe he’d reverse course and head to the dump. Hey guys, hi, there’s a beige futon I brought here on the weekend of October 11th–12th or 12th–13th, I can’t remember, but I remember the dumpster—green dumpster, many fluorescent lights, with a smelly couch. Any idea? And then he walked toward the green dumpster dressed in khakis, his least favorite pants, and he put his lips together on the subway in a dissonant pucker and the taco-shirted guy became extremely not happy because the pucker could easily arc up in the air and fall onto his hetero lips. He didn’t want any part of a man’s kiss—he worked for a living, drank in the evening, and he wanted a woman with a fiesta-sorta butt, not a thin though clean-shaven dude with a heavy book on his lap, a pinkie trapped inside. Yet the pucker continued and grew juicy because the originator of the pucker couldn’t control his daydream wardrobe, the ends of his khakis getting sooty as he walked to the green dumpster. Dreams were tough, but they could be easy too, as amazingly they found the green dumpster that held the beige futon and the head of the crew gave him his personal truck so he could take the beige futon home, but to where? They didn’t live there anymore. He lived in Bay Ridge and she lived in a place where he couldn’t find her. His pinkie really hurt. These dreams of you, he wondered, but which you? Him? Her? The pucker soon broke and the taco-shirted man relaxed.