The Contract (Ms. Bitterless)

• We will never go to IKEA together. Should we require modern Scandinavian furnishings, we will enlist an objective third party to procure our PAARTIKLE BORD dining set for us. I have seen the face of the male IKEA patron, and it is not pretty. Ranging from "bemused and haggard" to "soul-deadened and haggard", they trail behind their partners, forlorn, clutching fabric swatches and dreams. They say they prefer the beech stain to the espresso; in actuality, they fail to give a shit about this or any other topic. Their Abercrombie t-shirt-clad little hearts weep silently for a break, a truce, some Swedish meatballs, a different life entirely.
  
  I will slit my wrists with a miniature Allen wrench before I let that fate befall you, Imaginary Boyfriend.


• You will appreciate my grilled cheeses. They do not contain a single, one-note cheese, but the symphonic convergence of three. Every millimeter of their interior surface area is slicked with a special mustard/mayo concoction; the last bite is as unctuous and well-seasoned as the first. An arcane dance of squishing, flipping and wiggling produces their Pantone-perfect crispy exterior. And they are made with such love, such buttery-warm affection that it seems as though your name has been scrawled across them, writ small a million times in lacy golden-brown.

• Your presence in my life will make sweetly romantic alt-rock that much better. The treble brighter, juicier. Bass as lust incarnate, pushing and pressing through crackly speakers. The singer's hushed lilt a weak acid capable of dissolving our bodies, sweeping the resultant dust across thousands of miles and causing Pan-Pacific teenagers to sniffle and sigh with the sheer beauty of it all.
  
  As opposed to your current absence, which leads only to my oft-expressed desire to garrote Pete Yorn with his own guitar strings.



• We'll conjure up our own tiny, localized Indian summer... fling off the ennui like a too-warm quilt, open all the windows, flood the house with good smells and golden light. We'll run our fingers through every chain-link fence we pass, kick up flurries of dry, spicy leaves, eat bacon and eggs and cream-shot coffee for breakfast because Wheaties clearly aren't enough to nourish something so ravenous, insatiable, twenty feet tall and growing by the second.



• We will walk in the snow.
  
  You will find my pom-pom-topped knit hat strangely alluring.
  
  We will play eagerly, mittens sticking to ice-crusted playground equipment, snowballs exploding against puffy coats, the air glacially clean and sweet.
  
  We will create our own small ice-world, sparkling and fuzzily aglow under sodium-arc lights. In the midst of a particularly heated snowball battle, the laughing, wet-mittened Ice King will push the flushed, red-nosed Ice Queen down next to the slides. Rather than shoving icicles down the back of her parka (as was his stated intent), he'll cover her chilly face in kisses... freezing, cold, thawing, downright warm, okay then, hot. Crows and rabbits will pause in amazement at the strange creatures with Gore-Tex hides tussling in the snow, smashing delicate drifts, ripping off soaked wool, melting in the chill.
  
  And then you'll shove icicles down my parka.



• You'll read my writing, of your own volition, because it's mine. You'll catch the occasional glimpse of yourself from behind the dense thickets of adjective. You will swoon in exactly the way I imagined while mangling the keyboard with one hand and drinking wine from a party cup with the other. You will leave adorable, purposefully-obscure comments under names which I only I would recognize... FoieGrasApocalyse218, BordentownNewJerseyDeathTrip99.



• You'll send flowers to my office on my birthday. Not vanilla-with-no-toppings roses, not cheap-little-hussy carnations, not the ever-popular and allergy-provoking Asiatic lilies. Flame-orange tulips, luridly purple mini-Callas, one of those eerie, luminescent flowers which only bloom once every twenty years and must be stolen in a risky, late-night commando raid on the local arboretum. Those are more my style. You know.



• The Replacements' "Unsatisfied" : the role you and I play in each other's lives should be the diametric opposite of the sentiment expressed in this song. My liberty and my chances will never be just a lie, damn it.
  
  "Kiss Me On the Bus", though? Westerberg's sweet, pleading, low-grit rasp? Rollicking guitars lewdly rubbing against joyous chimes? That sudden, manic itch to stop reading Spanish public-service posters, stand up and be magically alive for the next three minutes?
  
  I'll be that for you if you'll be that for me.



• You'll let me grow close enough so that it'll really, truly sting if either one of us ever pulls back. You'll be geeky and goofy and captivating enough so that I'll rip through the standard "hesitating/contemplating/flinging-self-off-cliff" rigmarole in record time, no matter how intense that hypothetical sting might be.
  
  And when I'm discussing my busted-up heart and gun-shy disposition, you'll recognize and call me on my complete, utter bullshit.



• You'll always give me quarters for the jukebox.
  
  You'll admire my exaggerated hip-swishing as I saunter back, and your slightly-crooked, drink-stirrer-chewing grin will assure me that yes, 0812 was exactly totally perfectly right.