I.
I’m nervous to see you
in case you don’t know me anymore.

Maybe I’m no longer cool, or exciting –
or you have become a famous actress in New York

and I somehow missed that on
the internet.

II.
Two Camparis sit open mouthed on your bench
by the time I get to your apartment -

which is giant, I might add. This is unsurprising because
you’ve always had

an air of magic
about you.

You meet me at your door, and everything
is already so warm and familiar.

I melt. You melt.
We melt together.

It no longer feels like an encounter
in a Sims game.

III.
Stop Making Sense plays and we’re 19 again, binge drinking
to get to the party on time,

piling too many people into an Uber and ducking
down from the driver in the dark.

I lie over your legs to hide as the lights
of the Brooklyn Bridge pass over us,

the green corduroy of your pants
press grooves into my cheek

and we laugh about how we’re living inside our teen
dreams except

it doesn’t really feel like that.
It feels like something else entirely.

IV.
In the bathroom at the party
people charge their vapes in the wall sockets

and someone’s just paid $3,000
to get gold put into their teeth.

If you don’t get it, you’ll never get it, the girl says. Kinda like
Biggie Smalls, you know?

You laugh, knowing I will find this funny.
Everything in this city feels like a god damn movie.

V.
The rest of the evening plays out
like an Aziz Ansari sketch –

ordering tacos on the street and sipping pink wine out
of paper cups, our secrets

sloshing over the edge.
Why didn’t you ever call me, you ask.

Because I didn’t know what to say, I reply.
And anyway -

we all just look like we’re having a good time.
It’s difficult when you’re not.

Most of the time,
we’re not.

This is funny. Because it’s not
how we pictured our dreams to feel.

VI.
I have to go and before I leave you say,
so no one can hear,

wherever I am, I always think of you.
Perhaps that makes our dreams

enough
to last for now.

And just like that, time shifts and
I’m gone.