You danced with me,
wrapped me up in your arms.
We swayed in rhythm with the trees blowing in the storm outside.
Sinatra, then Elton, then Armstrong, Chapman, ending with the words
“Leave tonight or die this way”.

I didn’t want to leave, I’d be fine to die this way.
A little hazy from cheap wine
and the winter cold.
Comfortable in the embrace
of someone who does not know all of my secrets yet.
Who looked at me and sees happiness and a clumsy dancer,
not damaged goods patched together by Lexapro and long naps.

I grabbed your arms and pulled you out with me,
out onto the porch and into the heart of the storm.
The sky lighting up with strikes of electricity,
so close we could almost feel it pulse through us.
I climbed onto your shoulders and you showed me the city.
I could see it through your eyes.

You looked up at me and
your eyes wrinkled at the corners while you smiled.
Your country boy grin tinged with
whiskey happiness and Johnny Cash pain.
I mirrored you.
Mine tainted with New England attitude and slight fear.

Fear for what I knew was inevitable.
That you would find the bottle on my bedside table
filled with little white pills,
those that would keep me from panicking in a situation just like this.
That you would find my journal covered in roses,
and filled with pages about boys with that same grin,
who had ripped mine from my face.

But your warm embrace melted that fear away.
How someone I had only known for days could bring as much solace,
I do not know.
But peace soon came from that smile filled with
whiskey happiness and Johnny Cash pain.