My bluest valentine

By Scott Laudati

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.”

let's 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's latest poetry collection, Hawaiian Shirts in the Electric Chair REDUX, is available now from Cephalopress. Follow him @scottlaudati

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