Sadness gathers in bruises along your hipbones
and in aches of metatarsals
when you're dancing alone at the bar, stumbling
over your feet, reeling into counters.

You greet 10 o'clock with the night's fifth drink,
searing the back of your esophagus--strong.
The spinning world around you romanticizes
loneliness.  There's nothing captivating
about swollen cheek bones and shaking knees
from the futile retracing of weary footsteps
in search of people and hope you've lost.

Misery crawls outside where radius meets ulna,
not for a party, but a bar fight,
full of drunkenness and hatred.
Pent up emotions carve flesh along your arms.

Emptiness pulverizes your ribcage,
plucked light guitar strings, your nerves cave
till you puke it all into an unwelcoming bathroom sink.

Despite all 206 bones,
you're never together in heart.