The speaker remembers a night in a parked car, sitting beside someone he was drawn to while she smoked and talked. She shrugs off life as something we do until we die, says she can't make herself care anymore, and claims she thrives among broken things. The speaker doesn't argue. Instead he admits, a little ashamed, that he wished he were even more damaged so he could match her.
What stands out is how little actually happens. He drives her home, and that's it. Yet the memory has stayed vivid: the blue smoke curling toward her dyed hair, the smell that lingers after she's gone. The speaker's feeling is a raw, wanting kind of love, strong enough to push aside thoughts of the future or hope. The mood is hazy and wistful, like a half-remembered dream (as the title suggests). The ending is the saddest part: that single night felt so intense that everything since seems dull by comparison.