She is a cartoon. Or, she is a polaroid, fully developed moments after the click. Together, they are hot slick surface. She feels like a shiny black gun on a white sand beach.

He asks, "Do you think you're deep and meaningful?" She doesn't answer. She says, "I think I'm easy." They go to bed, again and again and again.

She is a cartoon. They are a firework. He tells her she smells of rotting oranges. He says, "You are a rank jungle flower that attracts beasts."

The floor is littered with silk and clothes pegs. She answers, "I'm deep, but there are no layers. I go straight down." "You are a well," he says.

They throw gold coins down into her and make wishes. They forget to eat. She measures her hand span on his ribcage: it fits. All of the wishes come true.

He smells like poppers and spray paint and krazy glue. At least, his heart does. His skin smells like her. It is covered in black ink and yellow bruises.

In his arms, she feels like animal fur and voodoo. "That doesn't count," says the real world. They aren't listening. "Take my photograph," he says.

They take a hundred photographs of each other. A thousand. They look more beautiful than anything they have ever seen.

"I'm so glad you are my friend," he says. Together, they are fools beyond the scope of language. "It isn't real," says the real world.

When they wake up, the first thing he tells her is that he missed her in the night. The second thing is his dreams. The third thing is not made of words.

She is a cartoon. They are a firework. If it were real, they wouldn't be laughing. Love is a serious business. This is just an explosion and the crook of an arm.