Teen Dream (Cold Night)

In the bath I looked out over the foamy, crackling plane of bubbles, culminating under the faucet in a mountain of larger, dominant bubbles, bursting slowly. My body was completely hidden from me below thousands of luminous, disintegrating pearls. I lifted the tips of my fingers to the surface like several fish and let them poke through with surprising pinkness. I imagined the bathroom was filling with glittering popping foam, bursting, endlessly regenerating until the room, not wanting to burst, unlatched the doors and windows, ejecting lustrous froth through the house and into the world outside. I, swathed in a haze of effervescence, rode the glistening fall out through the window and onto the street, destined for the sea. Before long, I find myself outside of your house. Not knowing what it looks like, I imagine it is something like mine, but a little more angular with fewer details, the grass needs mowing. I peer through your window and see you with your guitar, searching up and down the fretted neck for the right combination of notes to best describe your love for me. I want to tell you - I know, I know, there's no song that can describe our love. One particularly large bubble pops near my left shoulder, and you jerk out of your thoughts and turn your attention to the sound outside your window. Your eyes are on me floating naked in a cloud of bubble bath. But you can't see me. All you can see is snow.

I'm suddenly aware that my real bath bubbles have begun to dissolve, revealing patches of my body beneath the warm water. I sit upraising my knees like two geological events that immediately shudder into goose bumps as my wet skin meets the unwarmed air.

Tomorrow is school. My homework has yet to leave my backpack which is still, I assume, to the right of the couch where I tossed it Friday afternoon.

Boston, 2010