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I called us all fiction
characters, waiting for the
writer to put the final period
down, close the book, tuck
it away on the shelves,
the highest one where you need
a ladder and it's never to be found.

The world likes conflict,
so it makes sense, our
life so fictionalized and beautified,
I suppose, for the readers, watchers
to gorge themselves with;
we're so entertaining, this is the
best.

Your teeth chatter, the cold
demands our attention with
sharp wind blast assaulting our
exposed cheeks turning red.
Blood rushes to my face when
we hide in an alleyway, say
warmth feels good.
You say something, burrowing
your face in my chest as
I dream of Eskimos having tea in
the middle of ice, wonder if they
have sex or fights or just live
with smiles on their faces
like in the magazines and cartoons.

You frown. You say I think in animation too
much and I think reality is too boring
or scary, whichever works for the situation;
today it's scary.

Met you this unusual blistery
November night to wave good-bye
to this overbearing heavy-
heartedness we've lugged between
us but the cold told me, "No, no," and

you told me, "No, no. It's not enough to just
say 'No, no'," you said. "We're just these
fiction characters", I said,
"With our fiction problems and our

fiction love." "And we need to be real now,"
you said. That scared me.
"We need to be real now, and it's
just not working," you said.

The stories I read always
had the two lovers come
out on top when The End
began it's ascend, so I should
be able to assume it'll stay the same
for us too, us two - all the
stuff in the middle was always
filler to get the audience to go,
"Ain't that nice," when they kissed
at the base of the Eiffel Tower,
the moonlight hitting them with fountain
shots erupting in the foreground,
they're so darling.

I should, but goodness, that
was before you decided we weren't
these fiction characters anymore.
I want to be mad that you didn't include
me in this, that you decided this,
that we weren't these fiction characters
anymore, but I don't know how to be mad
about this, never got the draft version,
the script didn't change with the new revisions.

***

There was a body pressed against
me in that wind tunnel that night,
I believe it was you. I wanted to
imagine it was all a dream, some
movie, TV show, some book,
some poem, something I could
call unreal.
But the scene wouldn't let me.
You wouldn't let me.
I wish we weren't
so non-fiction.
So non-fiction.