But maybe we could share a yard or something.

And so what if my picket fence is stained red (like your house that I drive by like a crazy ex-girlfriend) in the wooden veins from the dye of my sneakers as I climbed, sat perched watched guarded and fell from the peaks holding up the sky and our Walkman among other things?

It was building up like bills or anthills or landfills in the pit of my stomach and they say it's all downhill from here or something but what happens when you're already starting at the bottom in a little red wagon and begin to feel the gravity of it all when the card you draw tells you 'go back two spaces'?

I lose interest sometimes in this stick-shift life just like you told me automatics were for the elderly and I thought you were referring to the weapon because I thought about crashing your party. I used to think that my heart was so big it was just going to fall out, slip, burst from my chest the way a scream leaves a tea kettle or a strangling seagull or some little prick kid like you might once have been.

But now I don't think any microscope or scanner or Where's Waldo book could ever find it hiding and bouncing behind my ribs. It forgets to close the butterfly cage and the doors creak open and they rush up from my stomach and choke me up with all of that stupid fluttering and indecision and the complete delicacy of it all.

I didn't kill your cat, you know. I thought about it, thought about the whole dog-chocolate conspiracy and wondered if cats could O.D. on catnip because I used to confuse that shit with the mint in my backyard and I would put it in the tea and let me tell you it doesn't just work on cats.

I baked your birthday cake. You probably don't remember anything from that night, but you enjoyed it and gave your cat some.

I didn't have the heart to tell you.