How music infiltrates every part of my consciousness.

Dear Mystery Man,

Remember when we lay on my bed listening to a scratched up Bruce Springsteen record, drinking but not getting drunk, and talking about nothing? Somewhere between Born in the USA and Thunder Road (I had to flip the record) our mouths stopped moving and our fingers started wandering. The record bottomed out like a car scrapping a speed bump long before climax. Records should be longer.

Every time I'm with you, it feels like a honeymoon. Our lives are so compartmentalized. While I feel like I know you so well because you've wandered my house in the nude while I kept your underwear hostage in the bathroom while applying my make up, I know nothing of who you are outside of who you are with me. Are you charming with Sinatra crooning in the background? Do you really like "Foggy London Town" or do you just like it when I sing it while impersonating the WB frog? Are you awkward? Are you loud? Do you constantly crack jokes to appease your own self-consciousness or are you full of bravado and slamming your fist down upon a bar made entirely out of ceder and pleased with yourself for beating, yet again, your fellow barmates in American Bandstand Triva?


Who are you?


Do you wonder about me? When I sit locked in my bedroom listening to the local classic rock station, sneaking my roommates Miller High Life (they're nothing like champagne) and reading the same page of a Henry Miller book over and over and out loud, is this how you picture your lover? Do you know I wash my sheets a few days before you come over but sleep on a bare mattress during the in between period so as to preserve their fresh scent? Do you know that I chain smoke in my bedroom while I'm by myself? When you come over, I act like having a cigarette inside is a big deal, but I just burn a ton of incense so my room doesn't smell like Liza Minelli's dressing room.

I listen to Heart though I loathe them and I find radio commercials and hourly weather and traffic reports comforting background noise even though I scoff publicly about my roommates reality television binges. I love the 1-877-Kars-4-Kids jingle. Do you know that I wish I lived in a world without television at all? I wish we could go to the picture show and it still be a dime. We'd live large and splurge on popcorn and sneak in spirits.

As I write, a campy version of Puff the Magic Dragon just ended and the Village People just started up with their infamous hint. I'll let you guess which one. I don't have time to tell you. I must dance and reminisce upon the days of roller disco.

Love,

Your Mysterious Lover