Don’t bake me a birthday cake
this year.
Let’s go to Wawa and
buy a carton
of our old cigarettes
and drive to the Poconos,
to the mini golf
where we made dirty bets
around the windmill
and both of us got a rash
that night from the
heart-shaped hot tub.
Or we can go back to your parents’ basement
with the wood paneled walls
and the one cold night
we laid under the heater
and you whispered,
“Pretend it’s Aspen.”
Lets get married this time
like we swore we would at 17
when all we wanted
was to do drugs and fall in love
and we were still young enough
to be good at both.

____
Scott Laudati lives in New York with his Chiweenie, Drake. He is the author of Hawaiian Shirts In The Electric Chair (Kuboa Press) and Bone House (Bone Machine, Inc.). His work has appeared in Columbia Journal, The Stockholm Review, and many others. Visit him on Instagram @scottlaudati

Photography by Linda Foley