Prose: The Delicate Dance of Desire

And so I dance.

This dance has steps that resemble nothing else in the world. They are hidden rules and everyone follows them religiously. Like a secret society that everyone else is a member of, whispering the dark secrets of form and ritual in hushed back alleys just outside my earshot. A twist here, two unspoken understandings there all done behind the screen. I've been listening as long as I've been alive and the steps elude me even to this day. Perhaps I lack the subtlety required of its participants. The grace of the common man is beyond my reach despite the dizzying patterns I dance around the hard wood floors and pillars of beer cans.

It is a cruel thing at times, desperate and clinging. The fever pitch of a thousand paper hearts flying through the air smothering the floor and choking the life from anyone caught in the swarm. The band reaching its crescendo and falling face first into the crowd. Everyone is staring around, wondering if this maelstrom can outlast their willpower. The answer is yes, and you won't know your face when it's done.

Then you watch the grace of two seasoned veterans, toying with emotions that rattle like sabers in the hands of a master. Each perfectly poised and perfectly detached from the reality of the steps. Smirking bastards. These are the people who write the rules of engagement for everyone else. It is cool and inhuman, pausing for breath only to suspend your disbelief. I can enjoy the show, watching robots try to fuck if only to give me an uncomfortable laugh. The truth is that the methodical actions of these dressing dolls are as much a mystery to me as the ramblings of the madman whirling in his endless hair. It is perhaps the last mystery we're allowed.

At a certain point the vast majority of people expect that you don't believe monsters are hiding under your bed. I think they go to live in your heart when you banish them from the comfort of dust balls and one left socks. All you're left with is the boring underside of your mattress, a few boxes of random crap and a crumpled up porn magazine. Gone is the myth we carry around as children, the wonder of a spiderweb and the witching hour between this world and the next. We place all of our belief and mystery into smaller buckets, call one Love and the other one God and move on with life. It is all boiled down and bottled up in a dance and we dance it all the time, whether we know it or not. It eats up all of our time and energy and most of the time we're pretty unaware of it.

But I've been watching my feet very closely.
I think they'll betray me soon.