Lessons From the Kissing Booth

Yesterday, sitting at the dock downwind of a very nice but unfortunately fragrant homeless man, I realized that a lot of the imaginary conversations I have in my head with people are more like letters. More epistolary paragraphs than the regular taking turns of sitting across a table. I think,

Hey you,
I was just sitting here and that Neutral Milk Hotel album came on, and I thought of that time at the coffee shop where everyone was talking about Halloween costumes. They asked us what we were going to be, remember, and I looked at you and said, "A hyacinth girl" and you looked at me and said, "The king of carrot flowers" and everyone looked at both of us and said, "Oh, so you're going to be total fucking nerds, then." But we knew who had it right.
love, me

And I think back to myself that they're answering,

Hey you,
That was the day I had to sit on you until you promised not to get the phrase, "If you lived here you'd be home by now" tattooed along your collarbone. Because it was on a fencepost by those new apartments down at the beach. I have a skipping record sort of feeling sometimes these days, like I've listened to my own guitar solo so many times that the needle just can't get there again. I'm thinking of turning my fingers into paper birds.
love, me

Or I think to myself that I'm saying,

Hi, you,
The lyric "you kept me guessing and your distance" makes me think of you with a breath-losing kind of feeling, like that time in the first grade where I lost my handhold on the monkey bars and landed on my back. It's starting to be how I feel whenever I think about you. I'm short of breath a lot lately, and I can't decide if the feeling is better than nothing. Quitting you is like quitting smoking, and my lungs are so empty these days.
love, me

And in my head they say back,

Hi, you,
Didn't anyone ever tell you that if you keep looking at me with your Stubborn Face you're going to stick like that? I have Things to think of before it's time to think of you, so it's time you learned how to deal with it more and complain less. It's probably better for you if you don't always get what you want.
love, me

Or I'll have a conversation with a stranger that goes,

Hey there,
I like how, when you stop to see if I need another drink, you rest your thumb and forefinger on the bar. You do it each and every time, and I like to think it's some sort of signal. I have a little crush shaped like a cocktail glass on you. We must never speak.
love, me

And in my head the stranger answers,

Hey there,
Speaking would break everything. When I touch my thumb and forefinger to the bar, that how I say 'let's run away to Acapulco' and when you look at it and smile that's how you agree. It's our secret.
love, me

It's not what it looks like in my head all the time, mind, but I think that when I'm having pretend conversations a significant portion of them go like this. Perhaps it's no surprise that I correspond so much, since that seems to be how I think.