ballroom

     Sometimes, when I'm greatly alone in the presence of only the moon, I like to collect all of my past loves up and put them in a great ballroom in my head and imagine how they'd interact with the party. It functions in mood almost like a funeral, it's this awkward dance of remembrance that is celebrating or resenting the affection that once was the interaction I had with that specific person. They're all always dressed up, like I promised I'd make them do, if I had ever had the chance to be taken to a ball by any of them. I don't think any of them knew how to dance -- as if I do myself -- but at least I know some of the footwork (I don't mean that in a rude way, I'm just teasing). The ballroom is always this moderately claustrophobic, rectangular room with red and gold carpet stretching across the whole way. On one short end is a stage, a great polished light wooden stage, draped in red and gold curtains. Light reflects from some ambiguous source off of the curtains, shining here and there into accents across the room. There's usually a lonely piano up there, and if not, a small band to play ballroom tunes. There's always a bar on the end of the right long side of the room, and it always looks like the one from that scene where Jack Torrance talks to those ghosts in The Shining. I don't drink too much at all, and nobody I know yet spends too much time there, but that's where the cocktails are made. The whole room is lit up by candelabras and the occasional chandelier, and it's just warm enough to be comfortable and dark enough to feel like you look better there than in the light. On the left of the room (left being stage right), rectangular dining tables present hors d'oeuvres, and line most of the left wall. Also on the left side of the room are glass double-doors in the center of the wall, but I couldn't tell you what sits beyond them. It's not that I can't see through them, rather that I suppose I've never paid very good attention to the hall. The floor is littered in tables, great quality circular brunch tables draped in fine cloth. The guests don't spend all their time sitting however -- most'd rather stand it seems -- and I can't say I ever recall our food arriving or being ordered in the first place. We're all dressed up, in suits and dresses, and everybody looks so lovely. Even thinking about it a little makes my heart ache with longing. The walls are wooden, I would have to assume, as they are coated in a rich, cream colored paint. Adorning these walls are geometric red patterns painted near the ceiling, lining the whole room. Often times I find myself sitting down on a table with some sort of sparkling drink, listening to the chatter rise into my ears as the image fades into view. I can see the stage, and feel the gazes of my formers as vividly as the silk that makes up my dress. Classic ballroom jazz steeps the conversations in a casual mood, while still allowing for the fanciful decorum and thus the emotional endowment of each subject conversed. 

[M.M] is sitting at a table that feels close but in actuality is on the far-most upper right hand corner of the room (I usually start close to the center, back of the formation of tables). I can see the highlights in her hair, and she laughs with her friends and accomplices at some joke or perhaps anecdote. I think she's having the most fun out of any of the guests of honor, perhaps because she finds it so easy to focus so much so on herself. She wears a lovely (albeit a little revealing) sequined dress, with a greater muted rose-gold color with richer gold accents. It compliments her hair quite nicely. 

[H.H] is always standing near the bar -- almost --, too awkward to go out and find a table -- not that there wouldn't be enough seats, there's always plenty -- she's just a wallflower. She never talked to me about fancy environments (I think, I struggle to remember as it was pre-medication), but I can imagine her not particularly desiring the engage in the general pleasantries. She wears a suit that's a little too big on her, and she looks super butch-y. It's funny in an endearing way, like a puppy clumsily walking around in people shoes. I'm glad she's having fun, whatever she may be having. Out of anybody there, I feel like she's the closest person that I could have a "just a friend" interaction with. She's cool. 

[S.L], you idiot. He stands very standoffishly by the hors d'oeuvres, skulking and imagining only what time he can leave. I can smell his cologne and the weed it seeks to mask. He reeks of regret, guilt, and acknowledgment. Maybe that's why he stays instead of trying to leave, because of how uncomfortable he is and how much he hates the situation -- he recognizes that this is, in one way, retribution. His suit fits him very well, and it flatters his form nicely. The way that his hair curls in the dark makes his presence creeping and a little intimidating. Whatever the fuck he's drinking, it's alcoholic. He gazes at the back wall -- but beyond it -- and glares. Almost like he's embarrassed. I can't help but smile at the thought of his embarrassment, nigh sadistically. No, I'm sorry, sadistically. I must note, my surprise at one thing; he flirts not with anyone.

[R] is there somewhere. She's standing in the crowd, but I never see her face and she never sees mine; at that's okay. Her presence isn't about her or about me, she's just here for a good time. Writing it down, her mannerisms reflect well how our relationship (if you could even call it that) was. 

[S.S] skulks about the crowd, glaring at me. He's not just resentful, but angry. He wants to flip the crowd onto me, he wants me to collapse under the social weight that he feels so viscerally. However he may desire to lash out, he can't; and I am less than indifferent. He can feel however he wants, but he is ultimately constrained by the party in that he exists as a part of it. His rage is hardly controlled, but it is yet restrained by the layer of decorum, where he drowns in champagne-spattered conversation. I wish he could do something but orbit me, but no matter how I push him subconsciously away from caring only about revenge, he revolves around me so. It's unfortunate how little he seems to be growing. It's... childish. Whatever.

[E.S] waits for me while the tables are pushed aside to clear the floor for a slow dance. We lock eyes and while uncountable excruciating measures of time pass, she glows radiant. Her smile warps the air around her, it becoming thick and sweet like molasses. The light surrounding her head is a warm amber hue, and it dawns upon her visage like a halo. I am too captivated to tell you what she's wearing, I am enthralled by her presence alone. Yet, I am afraid. I'm scared of the future, because I don't want to let it hurt her and for that it is nearly my fault that the time that passes so slowly about her does so. For each second of radiant glory, I worry about the unknowable. I have no complaints on our romance, we aren't even together; and that reassures me as does she verbally, that there is perhaps nothing to fear. I can't wait to dance, but I'm worried that by the time the tables have cleared and the dance in underway, I will be somewhere else entirely. Left, to another party, or speaking so fondly of another woman. I just don't want to turn her into a story.