We Will Drink our Coffee and Complete our Novels and Lay in Sunlight and Sit in Darkness. 

by Tao Lin

Let's get drunk and look at Myspace and write poetry about llamas and make drunken Youtube videos of us walking through a snowstorm at night in a gated community in Massachusetts. Let's shower separately and meet in bed. You will turn off the light and I will sit on the bed and a car will pass on the street and its headlights will shine on us a moment and I will see a part of your left eyebrow and then your entire face as you are coming toward me.

The next day you will work on a novel about a lonely woman in New York City and I will work on a novel about depressed movie stars who have no pets and don't read books. We will meet in the living room at 2 p.m. and eat watermelon by the window and watch small children walk home from school. We will write poetry about planetariums and outdoor recess and the third-grade and then we will drink iced coffee and lay on the carpet in sunlight and listen to acoustic guitar music by sad women in their late-twenties.

We will drive to a new Japanese restaurant across the street from a Wal-Mart shopping plaza and it will be very dark inside and we will sit side-by-side in a corner booth and hold hands under the table. We will eat edamame and drink green tea. We will stay in the restaurant for two hours and our waitress will watch us from the distance and we will whisper illogical phrases to each other and nod with calm facial expressions and hold each other and look at the rest of the restaurant with wide and discerning eyes while thinking about the future and death and our books and boredom. 

After dinner we will drive around listening to emotional guitar music from the mid-90's and you will lay your head on my shoulder and I will pet your hair and think about crying and you will look at the speedometer and think about your childhood and we will go to a 24-hour grocery store and walk through the produce section and it will be very bright and I will say that I feel insane and drunk and it will be 4 a.m. and you will pick up a muffin and ask me how many calories I think it is and I will say 860 and you will say 1120 and I will slap it out of your hand and it will roll on the ground and while you are distracted I will kiss your mouth and then step back and look very carefully at your face. You will ask me what I see and I will say your name and I will hold your hand and we will walk through each aisle of the grocery store without talking and in the parking lot you will let go of my hand and run to the car and turn around and stare at me as I walk toward you. 

At 5 a.m. we will lay in bed and talk about snowstorms and small children and the future and muffins and cakes and gated communities and happy-sounding music with sad lyrics. When the window starts getting bright from the sun you will roll away from me and say you feel sleepy. I will pat your shoulder a little before moving in close and holding you with my arm around your waist and my hand on your stomach. I will wonder if you are asleep and then I will think about my childhood and video games and Wal-Mart and green tea and what I would like the order of songs to be if I recorded an album of acoustic guitar songs with stand-up bass and a muted drum set and a violin that sounded like it was being played in another room.

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Tao Lin is the author of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (May 2008, Melville House) and other books.