Bachelor at Prom | tonight or never
Now they are before me. I retreat into the shadows as he twirls her outward.
Watching that pair dance, I realise that I have no faith in young love. Of course, I am not lonely. But it’s hard to imagine anything other than the most basic desires in those blushing eyes and gleaming cheeks. Maybe consolation; that late-night companionship and the warm body heaving beside yours to remind you that you are not dead, but dreaming. The dancers twirl toward my corner of the room, heel against floorboard, hems of dresses dragging on the dusty glaze. Lights dim. Eyes glow. Maybe obsession; slightly crumpled tissues at the edge of beds and photographs in a folder with an all-lowercase title. His arms envelope her torso, they orbit as two ultra-tidal neutron stars, all glamour, all enamel white and platinum white and powdered white. Whirling, all reasonable speech dissolves into laughter, the legato of whispered love occasionally broken with profuse kisses. I wonder if he put perfume behind his ear. Maybe lust; the gravitation that draws out a heavy thump-thwump-thwumping in the ears, sweat profusely streaming from limbs, skin against skin, and the air that hangs heavy after la petite mort, and the inescapable clarity of it all.
Of course, I am not lonely. I like to think that I observe. I want to think that distance here is a kind of rationality. Now they are before me. I retreat into the shadows as he twirls her outward. Her figure leaned back, her golden hair loosens in the flight. And I feel the gust of movement as she whips past my watch. Intense. Glamorous. Irreconcilable. So this is what it is? He laughs as the pair reunites, arm-entwining arm. They come to a standstill. Momentarily their faces become wholly obstructed by their hands as they share the parting kiss, chest pressed against chest, their bodies slightly rocking like that willow overlooking the gateshead. I flame. They part. She flees to her friends, her dress disappears. Burning questions begin to smoulder. Futile little fires that belch thick plumes of smoke into the my ribs where the heart lies caged. How? But surely this does not last. How? But surely there is no substance here. How? But they could not be much older than me; and I am not lonely.
He is slower to move. He dusts the sparkles off his collar, unbuttons the first notch of his shirt, runs a hand through his hair. He let his fingers run down his cheek where a little trickle of rouge still remains. Now only a blemish. And like a tin-man before the mirror, limbs all stiff and each step unnaturally heavy, he drifts from off the lighted stage and into shadow.
