Little, Fizzy Bubbles

A night of stars plastered in the sky

For how real they seemed, their glimmer was unwelcomed.

Fabric swayed in time with sounds of tittering joy.

So false like the lashes and paint adorning their flesh.

Each year, another flash of diamonds rubbed in snake oil.

Things promised to be better than what it was comprised of.

Another year of waiting for the hands to meet halfway.

The signal to let the smell of champagne linger in the air like the salty harbor.

I saw enough.

Mahogany challenged across the room;

Encouraging, embracing the twirls in counter clow whirls.

Shifting and moving against the overstated dress.

With steps unsure and eyes full of bubbles;

A swagger that is fueled by libation courage.

The lights from the chandelier glisten like the false balls of gas pretending to be magical

The same gas and debris clusters that everyone sings about.

The same ones that people see in their amore’s eyes.

Not you.

I see flashes of the sun licking and heating the surface of your skin.

I see stability that mountains envy with the strength to divert impact.

I feel the sweet glow of mahogany orbs pouring like hot chocolate in a winter storm.

I was seen. I was heard.

Embraced by the last person I could expect and the first that I would hope.

Sounds in my ears boiled down, reduced to the immediate voice dancing,

Enrapturing.

Polite with a breath of uncertainty.

Sweeter than tea with jam in the Russian nights.

Though filtered with anxiety and graced with silent understanding.

A joke befitting the royal court jester

An epitaph to respective reputations

Yet…

Worry, care, concern... none

A bleached white canvas of glorious unity in a pocket

Guests in a jewelry store selling quartz as diamonds

Blush.

Such a petal pink that nature’s beauty leaves you gaping at words that would not form.

Words that did nothing to convey the pleasure

Ambient and benevolent.

Gallantly inviting one to press in to flow away then ebb closer

A push and pull deigned to mimic the gravity of the tides.

A lunar tug of war drawing two ironically star-crossed idiots closer

While nerves repulsed them, thrusting apart like a hand snatched from the flame.

A moth drawn to the flame is more of my inclination.

My wings, not flame retardant coated, desperate to reach your heat,

Bathe in the flames licking and caressing your soul like fire of a pyre

Smoldering and yet reaching for the Gods of old. The highs and lows.

Push and Pull

Stop and Go

Sun, Moon and Stars!

Oh, you my lovely Sun.

A room of alcoholic bubbles and airy laughter cannot reach ethereal tones.

The cadence of your voice engulfs all that hear but, you never noticed.

Unknowing just as the Sun doesn’t know it is the center of my universe.

Me as outwardly calm as the Moon.

Reflecting the fluorescent light and false smiles as the bulbs flash.

More hands take my own as I show my award-winning smile.

Thread a few more strands of entertained lies to them and,

Continue lighting others by reflecting your visage unto them like a priestly blessing.

The giant balls of hot air, dust and metal tightly compressed and loosely giving.

I can no longer compose my subtle glow caused by your unwavering sway.

I’m drawn to you; lines and pencil marks on the canvas once bare.

Waiting for the sketch to create what I hope is binding as legal contract.

Mutually beneficial for both and more than generous in the benefits.

We never noticed that our orbit grew, pressing the interlopers.

Our stage in this self-contained universe brightly decorated,

Amethyst, crystal quarts and lapis lazuli.

Glimmer like hopeless romantics observing our ever-changing choreography.

I can’t wait to see where your light leads us.

I’ll meditate and speak into existence the patient and docile ice needed to temper the flames.

Not quench. I don’t want it to stop. Never stop.

Just shape it to a word that we both can hold onto.

Mold it to a shape we can grasp like a child reaching for favorite items.

When we look back at this exercise in holding a façade,

Let my cracks be visible to you.

Only to the natural light in a dust cloud of overstated fragrance and heavy hairspray.

Visible to the mahogany brown orbs piercing and clutching from galaxies away.

Speaking promises of care from deaf lips.

Promising eternity with uncharted expression painting by your body’s display.

Panic stricken touch as if my icy exterior was mist.

Shifting and translucent in the presence of a turbine.

Yet…

I want nothing more than be grasped in your anxiety and sought after for comfort.

Liberated from false pleasantries and arrogant platitudes.

Desperate for the center of my small universe to have something that I orbit.

Not the predecessor to the heliocentric model

Our paths conjoined and present in the sky.

Flames to warm my every side and

The devotion only I can give to your spatially unaware shadows.

A consistent and verifiable motion that spans lifetimes.

Intertwined,

linked fingers grasped like fears that can’t be sorted.

Never straying from what is needed in a false memory created by prosecco.