in the pulsing basement
with the blue lights people curve
their bodies to others like twin
quotation marks, the beginning
or the end of something, a place so
many words could go but

for the music swallowing them whole.
when will I stop being afraid of
you long enough to look you in the eye?
don’t tell me a single ****** thing.
it’s so hard to like people
when you know too much about them.

hands on hips press fingerprints
into bone, broad palms on slim silhouettes,
so many people falling for shadows
that we have to keep the lights turned low.  
stumbling on the swells of the bass,
just looking for arms to catch us.
we dance like we need another body
to support us, like there’s something here
left to save. if I don’t try to kiss you
will you stay?

please don’t give a **** about me.
please, just take me home so I can fit
the shards of my spine to yours
and break myself again in the morning.
everything is happening on the wrong side
of a wall I built myself
but when you throw me up against it
I think I can hear my heart a little better.

our friends are dancing next to us
and I watch them like they know what they’re
doing, like here’s a lesson I was born to learn,  
I have lived this life so many
different ways and none of them have
ever made him love me.

a girl tows a boy up the spiral staircase,
dark mascara tracing the shadows
beneath her eyes.

I wonder if they’ve broken
each other yet.
I wonder if they’ve found
what they’re looking for.