i walk the streets of viejo vallarta. it is almost christmas. i pick out gifts for my ex boyfriends: a flashy pink guitar, a skeleton smoking a cigarette. i pick out something for you, too: an ashtray shaped like a sombrero. you will use it sometime, to smoke your cohibas on the balcony i’ve built. (you were there yesterday and were tapping ashes down onto the pavement). back home we said we’d do lunch, but we never did. and perhaps it’s better this way. i’d rather walk these cobbled streets and catch sight of you, by chance enjoying a cerveza on that balcony where i’ve built a wall of candles to guide my eyes on darker nights.