Dancing With Strangers
I keep the music louder than it needs to be bass like a heartbeat I can borrow something steady that isn't yours
The room is all moving parts hands, lights, laughter that doesn't belong to me I slip between bodies like a ghost pretending to be alive
They don't know my name and I don't ask for theirs we trade fragments a smile, a spin, a temporary gravity and let them fall before they mean anything
It almost works
For a second in the blur of neon and sweat I forget the shape of your absence I forget how quiet a room can get when it's missing one person
But then a song slows down of course it does and suddenly I'm aware of my hands empty and unfamiliar like they've been holding onto nothing for too long
So I find someone new before the silence notices me
We laugh like it's easy like nothing ever broke like I didn't learn how to lose you in small, permanent ways
And I dance god, I dance like if I keep moving I won't have to feel how still my life became without you
the lights flash the crowd swallows the night keeps offering me people I won't remember
and I take them every single one not because I want them but because I don't want to want you
