Cold salsa dumped on a scalding hot conversation. A margarita to keep us from ripping each other to shreds. Teeth soon to gnaw on tough carne.

   You play with your chips like you too often have played with my heartstrings, while I attempt to explain that chips turn limp when left in the bowl too long.  I voice a thought. “Maybe chips could stand a chance for survival if placed on a tray, then reheated.”

   “So, are you alluding, in your poetic manner, to a truce, a reboot, a reunion, a jump-start to our relationship?” He delights in his sarcasm.

   I, in turn, suggest that we should see a counselor and work out our differences before we lock our rings in the vault. Then-

   Another margarita on the house. We are less likely to create drama for the bar crowd if we are sedated by double shots of tequila.

   The food comes later than it should. BAC: at least 1.5. You are bombed. Cheese all over your mouth. I swim through a wet burrito and lose my tongue, not saying what I thought I had the courage to say.

   Thinking you were a total bastard an hour ago, I can now look beyond your insensitivities and recognize your runway allure as being magnetic to any weak person, that being me.

   Once more, you are undeservedly in my arms, and I have already forgotten why I cannot be my own man.