Wanton Reckless Static in the VCR

        Lust.  I am in complete lust.  For my parents being out of town, my siblings at other people's houses, and being home alone with a boy listening to '80s love songs with the downstairs windows open.  The cats are asleep on their chairs.  We lay on the living room rug and alternately try to do the worm and stare at the textures on the ceiling in the low light at 1 A.M.  We fall asleep but wake up again when Pandora asks in silence, "Are you still listening?"  And we click "yes" and eat popsicles—the ones you have to pound against the counter-top to split apart.
        Out of habit, we whisper half of the time.  We look up at the clocks again and time is going slowly, the night lasting and lasting with the sky getting darker instead of light again.  I get tired of Pandora and show him YouTube videos of Mr. Rogers and then "Ask" by The Smiths, and I tell him that I always wanted to meet a girl from Luxembourg, but he was the first one to know.  The room smells like toothpaste and dirt stirred up by rain.  He would tell me he had some insane party trick—he can tie his shoelaces with his teeth, or something ridiculous, so I get him drunk on Nesquik until we both die laughing at how disgusting it is to try to fit a shoe in your mouth. 
        And we would kiss and I would change the subject because the night is still dark and we are still young.  He picks up Pretty in Pink and we fall in mutual love with all of the characters, and lament how awesomely lame prom actually was, even for the misfits.  Lost in Salt Lake City, where the roads are one-way and the missed exit is actually a turn-off point for serial killers.  At this point, we realize it is 3 A.M., the witching hour, and I become paranoid and tell him ghost stories and then chicken out when he wants to tell me some.  I cover my ears and shake my head and he takes my hands and pulls them away, "There are no libraries!" he shouts, and we scream.
        The cats run off to hide on the beds, where it is quiet, and we remember to whisper.  We fall awake somewhere between moonlight and midnight and whether it is better to read the book before the movie.  Something about stars.  I remember how small I am, and think of M&Ms.  Red ones and yellow ones uneaten.  Our arms touch before we breathe the morning, with goosebumps.